The polarized attitudes of offshore wind - The social acceptance of planned offshore wind farm Västvind among Öckerö municipality residents

Sammanfattning: Climate change, the energy crisis of 2022-2023, and estimations of future electricity demands have stressed the necessity for a rapid transition of the energy system. Offshore wind energy plays an important role in this transition, and is expected to expand considerably on a global level, in the EU and in Sweden. While Swedes show high support of wind energy, a majority of recent projects have been stopped at the local level. The research on social acceptance of offshore wind energy farms in Sweden is still novel, and there is no previous study on the role of place attachment in a Swedish offshore case. This thesis studies the attitudes of residents in Öckerö municipality, Sweden to the local planned offshore wind energy farm Västvind, and the roles of anticipated impacts, general attitude to offshore wind and place attachment in the forming of Västvind attitudes. Through convenience sampling, 154 residents in Öckerö municipality participated in an online survey that was communicated through local physical and online social media billboards. The relationships between variables were investigated by applying Spearman’s rho and ordinal logistic regression calculations in Stata 17. The respondents exhibited polarized attitudes to Västvind, with a majority of respondents choosing the most positive or most negative alternative available. In general, two thirds (66.2%) of respondents were positive to Västvind, and 26.6% were negative. The regression analysis concluded that respondents’ anticipated impact on house prices and local energy supply were significant predictors of their attitude to Västvind. Their anticipated impact on ocean view, the municipality’s climate impact, employment, pride of municipality, tourism, regional energy supply, the fishing industry, and local ecosystems were not. Residents’ general attitude to offshore wind energy had a significant and strong association with their attitude to Västvind. Respondents’ place attachment did not. Almost all respondents exhibited high levels of place attachment. Further research into Swedish offshore cases is recommended, especially for focuses relating to motivations behind attitudes, energy production type preferences, anticipated loss of local influence and control of local resources, and place attachment.