It is a perverse problem that really shouldn’t exist. Germany enjoys a high level of social acceptance for its energy transition, yet public opposition to wind and grid expansion has contributed to the unprecedented slump in the country’s onshore wind build-out — with just 287MW added in the first half of 2019, the lowest figure since 2000.
The rise of not-in-my-backyard (Nimby) protests is a failure of government strategy and implementation, which has resulted in a phenomenon described by social psychologists as “reactance”.
