Contingent Valuation of renewable energy innovations: vegetal biomass in Italy

Warming-up of the planet and scarcity of conventional energy resources has led to aim of reducing the consumption of fossil fuels and the development of innovative renewable technologies for energy production. However, innovations and investments in renewable energy can encounter resistance of local communities. This makes planning for the development of Renewable Energy Source-based power plants often very difficult. Against this background, we investigate the level of social consensus on and support of the development of an energy plant based on the use of vegetal biomass in Central Sardinia, Italy. The method adopted is Contingent Valuation. Estimates of ex-ante household Willingness To Pay are implemented, as they are important indicators of the social endorsement for the project development. Implications concerning consensus/disagreement on innovative technologies for sustainable energy production are discussed as perspectives of future research.