Renewable energy and regional Australia: The limits to “best practices” for engagement

Global energy transitions are replacing fossil-fuel generated electricity with renewable and low emission technologies, changing how and where energy is produced, stored and transmitted. This shift necessitates the development of large-scale renewable energy infrastructure, typically in regional areas. Resistance from, and conflict within affected communities highlight ongoing challenges in managing community relationships during this large-scale landscape transformation. This research explores the perspectives, attitudes and experiences of key stakeholders associated with the expansion of renewable energy infrastructure. We seek to understand whether, and how, enhancing engagement practices can help to overcome the deep-seated social conflicts tied to the broader contextual issues in the energy transition. Using inductive qualitative analysis, we reviewed publicly available submissions to the national enquiry into community engagement on renewable energy developments (the “Dyer Review”). Our analysis identified that the challenges extend beyond engagement processes into more complex social dimensions, in particular: power imbalances between stakeholders; uncertainty and ambiguity of where responsibilities lie for leadership in the transition; a perceived urban-rural divide; mismatched realities; and a lack of acknowledgement of underlying emotions felt by affected communities, all of which indicate this issue may constitute a wicked problem. Our findings show that deep-seated social factors have an important influence on the transition and that a focus on engagement alone is unlikely to adequately manage and resolve community impacts. This research informs engagement processes, and more broadly, the way government, private sector, NGOs and other stakeholders engage in, and make decisions pertaining to the transition to renewable energy.