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Renewables
Why Renewables? The Pros
Consumer support
It's true, energy users like renewables. Several
studies and reports document
this, including a recent Deliberative
Poll conducted by the Nebraska
Public Power District
and according to an NREL research project entitled: Colorado
Homeowner Preferences on Energy and Environtal
Policy.
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Trends in public opinions polls have also shown long-standing preferences for renewables and efficiency over other energy sources. . .the pattern of preferences for using renewables to supply energy has been consistent in the poll data for 20 years. This is one of the strongest patterns identified in all of the national poll data on energy and the environment.
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Results of public opinion polls have long been criticized for being unrealistic – that is, some have argued that if consumers better understood the costs and other trade-offs involved in energy supply, their support for renewables would fade away. Ground-breaking research in Texas, however, showed just how robust public support for renewables truly is. Researchers in Texas used deliberative polling – a research method used to reduce the influence of poor information on public preferences. Electric utility customers throughout Texas were asked their preferences about a variety of energy topics, including renewables. These customers then underwent in-depth training on energy issues: they were given written material that had been carefully screened for bias, they deliberated the tradeoffs in electric generation technologies, and they discussed the issues. They were then asked their preferences a second time.
In the first (uninformed) polling, more than 50% of interviewees favored renewables as the generation resource that should be pursued first After the training, which included information on the costs of renewables and other generation options, the prefence for renewables dropped moderately to a level roughly tied with energy efficiency – but still ahead of that for fossil fuel plants. In other words, consumers still preferred renewables over fossil fuel plants, even when well-informed about the costs.
It's nice to know that consumers like renewables, but what does this really mean for a utility's renewable efforts? First, any renewable effort can be seen as an effort to meet energy users' needs: they want renewables, and you are delivering them. To the extent the utility's charter or mission statement states a goal of meeting users' needs, this can be a powerful argument for undertaking some sorts of a renewables effort. Second, that a renewables effort can yield significant good will for the utility. Translating good press coverage, for example, into tangible benefits is an uncertain process, but the value of positive media reports is certainly not zero. Third, a renewables effort is likely to cost somebody something, and to the extent users like renewables they will be less unhappy about paying for them.
Additional Resources:
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