Siting Locally-Unwanted Facilities: What Can Be Learnt from the Location of Italian Power Plants

37 Pages Posted: 19 May 2010 Last revised: 24 Jul 2012

See all articles by Paola Garrone

Paola Garrone

Politecnico di Milano

Angelamaria Groppi

Fondazione Energylab

Date Written: January 11, 2011

Abstract

The reaction of communities to the development of energy facilities is based on the environmental impact of the investment, but it also reflects the ex-ante propensity of residents to engage in collective actions. In this work we have examined the requests of authorization of Italian power producers for green-field thermal plants with the purpose of testing the efficiency of market-based siting policies. The classical comparative advantages of locations, e.g. infrastructure availability , have been confirmed to play a role. Besides, the authorization demands have been found to target, all other things being equal, the communities that suffer less environmental damage. However our findings have also revealed that power producers are likely to avoid environmentally suitable sites if they host a highly activist community. The paper also discusses some modifications concerning siting policies that could improve the alignment between community responses and the environmental costs of new energy facilities.

Keywords: siting, public acceptance, voice, power generation

JEL Classification: Q48, L94

Suggested Citation

Garrone, Paola and Groppi, Angelamaria, Siting Locally-Unwanted Facilities: What Can Be Learnt from the Location of Italian Power Plants (January 11, 2011). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1610127 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1610127

Paola Garrone

Politecnico di Milano ( email )

piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32
Milano, 20133
Italy
+39-02-23992742 (Phone)

Angelamaria Groppi (Contact Author)

Fondazione Energylab ( email )

Italy

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