FOSTEr in MED context analysis

Department of Social Science and Institutions

• DSSI is a multidisciplinary department

• Researchers work in different fields of Social Science: Sociology, Economics, Statistics, Social Psychology, Law, International Studies, Political Science


• The DSSI staff which is taking part in the project is:

– Prof. Elisabetta Strazzera (Economist - Coordinator)

– Dr. Aide Esu (Sociologist)

– Dr. Marina Mura (Social Psychologist)

• The team will coordinate the WP4 activities

WP4. Context Analysis

Workpackage Coordination:

UNICA -DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND INSTITUTIONS

Partners and regions involved in the WP: UNICA (Italy, Sardinia); ASCAME (Spain, Catalunya); CEEBA (Egypt, Al-Iskandanyah); IRI (Lebanon, Lebanon); RSS (Jordan, Al-Aqaba); CCI (Tunisia, Tunis)

Aim of WP4

• WP4 is devoted to perform the context analysis.

• In each region involved in the project a research will be conducted to assess:

– Knowledge and public acceptance of solar energy

– Energy consumption and production trends

– Local regulation standards in the area.

General Information

• The Context Analysis will be performed by each partner first through a desk approach and then through a survey, with interviews to local stakeholders (6 in-depth interviews in each partner region), and administration of questionnaires to local consumers (100 in each partner regions)

• The DSSI staff will deliver a qualitative analysis. The collected information will be used to plan activities in the WP5. Territorial Animation.

Detailed Activities

• Desk analysis (on local normative aspects, current energy status, etc.): the information required to set the frame of in-depth interviews and to design the questionnaire

• Workshop Training for local data collectors (selected by the project partners)

• Survey instruments (frame of in-depth interviews and questionnaires)


• In recent years, our group has undertaken a number of studies on the social acceptability of renewable energies and green technologies

• The aim of our work is to identify the determinants of consumers’ preferences and behaviours using a multidisciplinary approach

• One objective of this line of research is to give indications to policy makers and help the design of effective programmes to develop more sustainable energy consumption

Our studies on Demand and Acceptability of Renewable Energy • Recent studies:

– Acceptability of Wind Farms projects, and evaluation of monetary compensations

– Acceptability and assessment of consumers’ willingness to pay for green vs. brown energy

– Acceptability of “smart city” policies (RE-EE technologies in building sector; sustainable mobility)

Acceptability of Wind Farms

• Strazzera E, Mura M, Contu D (2012). Combining choice experiments with psychometric scales to assess the social acceptability of wind energy projects: A latent class approach. ENERGY POLICY, vol.48, p. 334-347, Energy Policy 48 Elsevier

• It was found that visual impacts on valued sites are an important factor of opposition toward a project. This effect is larger when identity values are attached to the specific site, so much that no compensation would be acceptable for individuals characterized by strong place attachment.

Acceptability of Wind Farms

• Conversely, other groups are willing to accept compensations, in form of private and/or public benefits.

• The distribution of benefits in the territory, and preservation of the option value related to the possible development of an archeological site, are important for individuals concerned with the sustainability of the local economy

Demand of green electricity

• Strazzera E, Mura M, Statzu V (2012). Powering the change: a Contingent Valuation study on the determinants of demand for green vs. brown energy. JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS AND POLICY, vol. 1, p. 146-173, Routledge

• A Contingent Valuation study was performed to assess a potential trade-off between external costs (impacts on health caused by pollution) and the cost of electricity paid by households.


• Two technologies were selected for the valuation exercise: coal-fired thermal and solar photovoltaic.

• Our results show that households are interested in buying solar energy, and are willing to pay an additional premium for it, which would support maintenance of a feed-in tariff system.


• According to the results of our study, if electric utilities were required by regulators to provide detailed information on the external effects (and in particular, on health impacts) of coal and other fossil fuels used in their energy mix, there will be a sizeable increase in the demand of green electric energy in the household sector.

Acceptability of Policies supporting Solar Technologies in the Residential sector

• Research funded by the Regional Government of Sardinia (LR7-call 2008)

• Partners of the project: DSSI, DICAAR and Dept. of Psychology

Acceptability of Policies supporting Solar Technologies in the Residential Sector

• Preliminary results show that on average the individuals in the sample would give support to public policies that increase the adoption of PV panels and energy efficiency of buildings, while they seem less keen on public support to solar thermal.


• However, when the same individual was asked to choose as a private consumer, there was no significant difference in terms of preferences across technologies


• The period of investment return is an important factor, as well as certainty on the length of the bureaucratic process; in general people are willing to pay something more in their bills to decrease emissions from their home


• These (and further) results may be useful for the context analysis of our WP4 in the FOSTER in MED project.

WP4 greetings

Thank you for your attention!

WP4 Coordinator team (DSSI):

• Elisabetta Strazzera ([email protected])

• Aide Esu ([email protected])

• Marina Mura ([email protected])

FOSTEr in MED context analysis

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