The key overarching research question is: Can broad-based community resilience planning lead to higher levels of community support for renewable energy projects?
To answer that question, this project is developing a new community co-design model to maximize community benefits from renewable development (particularly wind, solar, hydropower, and energy storage) for under-resourced mountainous communities.
This model will move beyond community engagement meetings, toward a replicable framework that:
A. Supports communities in developing strategies to strengthen community and environmental resilience to climatic and socio-economic change, broadly defined and
B. includes discussions of the potential for renewable projects to be part of that resilience strategy as a pathway toward high paying jobs, a municipal tax base, and additional revenue streams through community benefit agreements.
There are three research tasks in this project:
I. A high-level study of the economics of renewable energy across the region’s counties and GIS mapping of the renewable energy resources and storage opportunities in the region;
II. An industry-level study of the renewable energy sector’s community engagement track record in Virginia, Appalachia and the Southeast; and
III. A set of project-level studies and field research that explore the community opinions, policymaker positions, firm strategies and outcomes across two sites in South West Virginia (SWVA). We are working with the local community and stakeholders to explore their interest in an extended process of university support in renewable energy projects similar to the Resilience Adaptation Feasibility Tool (the RAFT).
A key output of this project will be a set of tools and policy recommendations that can be replicated in other communities throughout Appalachia and other mountainous regions to help renewable energy firms develop projects that maximize benefits to under-resourced communities. This work could also be the basis for a Center continuing this work in service of mountainous regions exploring renewable energy and economic development simultaneously.
