Shaping social acceptance of energy projects

International audienceThe urgent need to tackle climate change is leading scientists to design low-carbon solutions and rethink energy systems. Most of the technologies currently used have long services lives, thus calling for long-term assessments. However, the rational approaches on which the models are based intrinsically restrict their propensity to comprehensively cover future challenges. Most of those who work on them focus on searching for more robust or closer integration of models treating energy, economics, climate and resources, etc. Given that the public's perception of energy transition projects has a strong influence on the effective implementation of long-term scenarios, it is vital to address this question. The public's perception can be observed mostly when there is (local) opposition to an energy project or policy, thus calling for research on this phenomenon. Although all types of energy are concerned, research on this topic mostly focuses on the attitude toward renewable energy projects. It is quickly apparent that it is not just opposition, but the public's attitudes toward energy projects in general that shape what can be called social acceptance. In order to correctly integrate this topic into long-term assessments, it is crucial to both understand the concepts behind this term of social acceptance, and identify the various parameters that influence this acceptance of energy projects. Methods The aim of this work is to determine whether the existing literature on social acceptance of energy projects could help us to build a model of social acceptance. We analysed more than a hundred articles and combined three main characteristic parameters:-the objective of the paper (literature review, definition, characterization, measure, etc.),-the geographical zone focused, and-the technology or policy studied in the paper. From this classification, we built a map representing the various technologies and policies studied and the geographical focus of the articles. We also build two tables : one with all the articles studied, and another with only articles which aim is to measure the acceptability. Results Concerning the geographical spread of the articles studied, many articles focus on countries in Europe, the Middle East and North America (rich and developed countries). Some articles focus on countries in South America ([1],[2]). The geographical zones that are least represented in the literature are Africa ([3],[4]), Asia, and the former USSR ([5],[6]). We chose to analyze articles related to the definition, conceptualization and measurement of social acceptance. Most of them present a measure of acceptance regarding a specific technology or project in a specific country. However, it appears that these articles do not always propose a quantitative analysis of social acceptance. When they do, the metholodology studied often differ from one to another. A model of acceptance which is very often quoted is the model presented by Wüstenhagen et al. [7]. The authors structure social acceptance of renewable energy innovation in a three-dimensional approach, namely socio-political acceptance, community acceptance, and market acceptance. This model is major, mainly because it states that citizens are not the only stakeholders involved in shaping social acceptance. Our analysis of the measure articles put forward some parameters than can impact public's perception of energy projects