Public Acceptance of Renewable Energies: The Case of Battery Technologies

Batteries are a key technology for energy storage in the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies. At the same time, the degree of their social and environmental sustainability is up for discussion and potentially conflicts with the normative goals of the transformation. In other words, the status of batteries is controversial. In addition to the technical challenges and opportunities, questions of political and economic acceptance could tip the scales for or against energy storage technologies. This is not only the case when households decide for an electric car or a heat pump, but also when strong or weak environmental policies are subject to the favor of voters which demand environmentally friendly policies or ‘punish’ politicians, parties, and governments by withdrawing their individual votes in elections. From the perspective of transformation research, the question arises how citizens view batteries, what perspectives on sustainability exist, and what influence they might have on the acceptance of the energy transition. While here are numerous (empirical) acceptance studies for wind energy, solar energy, or biofuels, there are hardly any studies on battery technologies – although they are a key technology. The present study addresses this research gap and would like to better understand the place of storage technologies in the debate. Based on in-depth focus group interviews conducted with citizens in Germany, results are presented on current assessments, topics and opinions related to the acceptance of battery technologies among citizens. The paper is thus dedicated to a topic that is rarely addressed by social science and aims to provide impetus for the user-centered debate on social ecological transformation.