COM-PRES

‘COM-PRES’ is a new project examining ‘Communities and the Private Renewable Energy Sector’. Specifically, we study social development aspects of the renewable energy industry in South Africa. The Institute’s role is to examine the preferences of people living in communities that are supposed to benefit from wind or solar farms with respect to how the benefits should be spent. 

Three graduate students were recruited at the end of the year to carry forward research in two sites over the next two years. The objective of our research is not only to contribute to the social side of South Africa’s renewable energy policy but also to understand better how to measure preferences with regard to social expenditure, how measurement is affected by the methods used, how they are affected by deliberation and how they are aggregated at the community level.