Abstract
In an effort to diversify sources of energy, reduce carbon emissions, and meet growing demands for electricity, dozens of offshore wind farm sites are currently under consideration in the U.S. The Island Institute, a nonprofit community development organization based in Rockland, Maine, advocates for meaningful public engagement during decision-making processes, including those involving island communities and offshore wind. This organization engages local stakeholders, wind farm developers, scientists, engineers, state and federal agency decision-makers and others to learn from each other and carefully consider the trade-offs involved in developing an offshore wind farm.
We highlight key insights on designing good stakeholder engagement processes in which local community members can help shape the offshore wind development process. This report is based on both the Island Institute’s work with coastal and island communities on energy issues since 2008 and also a review of relevant literature. We recommend making mutual learning accessible. This entails providing readily available and appropriate information (e.g., fact sheets and interactive web portals that use language for a public audience), designing deliberative learning opportunities (e.g., iterative stakeholder meetings, inter-community exchanges), timing stakeholder engagement a year or more before site selection, and enlisting bridging organizations to act as liaisons between communities and developers. We also highlight the need for collaboratively developed community benefits as part of offshore wind farm development. Defining appropriate community benefits requires that developers, government authorities, and communities reach a common understanding of who the recipient communities should be, what kind of benefits are suitable, what the impacts are, and how communities, benefits and impacts relate to each other. We illustrate these lessons learned with three case studies: 1) a wind farm near Block Island, Rhode Island, which, as of 2015, is on track to be the first installed offshore wind project in the U.S.; 2) a proposed offshore wind farm near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts that is currently moving through regulatory processes; and 3) a proposed offshore wind project near Monhegan, Maine where developers are focusing on refining their floating turbine prototype.
Our findings are not a comprehensive guide for engaging communities impacted by potential wind farms in order to guarantee community consent. Instead, we seek to improve the decision process and the quality of the interactions between communities and project developers in the hopes of creating better outcomes. We strive to explain the lessons we learned in practical ways using case studies to help practitioners bring insight from decision theory into practice. We seek to share these lessons to improve decision-making processes associated with novel uses of the ocean, particularly for generating renewable energy.