Renewable and sustainable energy technologies: A series of meta-analyses on what drives or hinder their social acceptance

As a consequence of climate change, new sustainable and renewable energy technologies play a central role in mitigating these changes or enabling adaptation. Social acceptance of such technologies has been a growing research area in recent years, gaining momentum in the energy sector: it is essential to synthesize this research into a unified and comprehensive perspective of what has been studied and capitalize on cumulative knowledge in the field. The present research aims to investigate the main social-psychological, contextual and technological determinants of the social acceptance of such technologies, providing a comprehensive picture of the phenomenon, through a series of meta-analyses. The decision to conduct a series of meta-analyses on this topic stems from the absence in the literature of meta-analyses that have investigated a broad spectrum of energy technologies. The few already existing meta-analyses, indeed, examined individual energy technologies or a small number of them. Articles included in the present meta-analyses were searched in the Scopus, Web of Science, and PsychInfo databases and were selected and included in the study following PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines. The present meta-analyses aim to investigate possible differences in the social acceptance determinants across the examined specific technologies. The main mitigation and adaptation energy technologies were indeed considered and differentiated according to their TRL (Technology Readiness Level). Some of the technologies examined are solar energy, biofuels, and negative emission technologies (e.g., Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Sequestration – CCUS). Results discussion focuses on the advancements regarding the state-of-the-art literature. These advances in the state-of-the-art will ultimately be critical – once the key determinants of sustainable energy technologies’ social acceptance will be analyzed – in understanding how to practically promote such social acceptance. This can be done by interacting with different types of stakeholders, from academics to policy-makers.