Acceptance should not be assumed. How the dynamics of social acceptance changes over time, impacting onshore wind repowering

Local community acceptance is a key influence on wind farm siting decisions. However, there is a temporal limitation to much social acceptance literature in that it does not consider how perceptions of the local community may change over the operational life of a wind farm and in the context of end-of-life applications for repowering or life-extension. In response, this paper increases the temporal depth of our understanding of social acceptance through presenting the results of survey research undertaken with communities living close to two English wind farms that have experienced end-of-life applications. For many respondents, perceptions of their local wind farm did not change following construction or over the life of the scheme, contrasting with common expectations that acceptance will increase over time. The findings reveal that community support for applications to repower or life-extend is influenced by experiences of living with the wind farm over time. It also shows how factors that have been found to impact perceptions of new wind farms, particularly the benefits that people experience, involvement in the planning process, and relationships with the developer, can influence responses to end-of-life applications. These insights are used to provide recommendations for end-of-life policy