I am a researcher at ENEA, the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development in Italy. Additionally, I am an Associate Professor of Social Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology NTNU in Trondheim, Norway. My expertise lies in environmental sociology, focusing on the social aspects of sustainable energy production and consumption, as well as their policy implications. Some of the specific topics I have worked on include energy communities, social acceptability of renewable energy sources, energy social innovations, energy poverty, and energy justice. I have gained extensive experience through various projects, including the horizon projects ACCTING, SMARTEES, and ENTRANCES. In 2017, I completed my PhD at the School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure, and Society of Heriot-Watt University in the UK, where I researched the social acceptability of onshore wind farms. Following this, I held positions at several universities in the United Kingdom, Italy, and Norway, eventually being appointed as an associate professor with tenure. I have authored a monograph titled “Wind Power and Public Engagement: Co-operatives and Community Ownership” published by Routledge, as well as numerous peer-reviewed journal articles. Notably, two of my papers were cited in official reports by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).


Adopting an interdisciplinary social science approach, this book examines community reactions to wind farms to form a new understanding of what facilitates social acceptance.

Based on empirical research, Wind Power and Public Engagement investigates opposition to wind energy and considers the advantages as well as the limits of the co-operative model of wind farm community ownership. Giuseppe Pellegrini-Masini compares the role of co-operative schemes with community benefits schemes in increasing acceptability, and also sheds light on the impact of social factors including pro-environmental attitudes, perceived benefits and costs, place attachment, trust, as well as individuals’ resources such as information and income. Five research cases are investigated in England and Scotland, including the first local, community-owned wind farm co-operative in the UK. Critically reviewing existing social research theories, the book offers a new viewpoint, integrating rational choice and environmental attitudinal theories, from which to assess and understand the social acceptability of wind energy. It also highlights new opportunities for raising consensus in communities around locally proposed wind farms.

The book will be of great interest to students and scholars of renewable energy, energy policy, environmental sociology, environmental psychology, environmental planning and sustainability in general, as well as policymakers.


Publications

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018 

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007