Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy in Developing Countries: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Utilization of renewable energy technologies has short-term, middle-term and long term interests. Since the portion of renewable energies have to increase 10% till 2025, legislating relevant policies for increasing the portion of these energies is essential. This article reports studies about the social acceptance level of renewable energies in a selected developing country by using social acceptance pyramid. First, the identified indicators are weighted based on the circumstances of renewable energies. After that, the selected renewable sources, wind, solar, and geothermal, are ranked based on the indicators and analytical hierarchy process. The research results indicate that wind energy has the better social acceptance position than solar and geothermal energies. Finally, some polices are suggested for increasing the acceptance level of all renewable energies in developing countries.