Environmental governance in renewable energy development: a case study of environmental permitting and planning in the Great Plains region

Abstract

As utility-scale wind and solar deployment continue to increase, the conflict between expediting development and protecting local environments is only going to continue to become more prominent. There are a select number of federal regulations which guide renewable energy development and policy at the state and/or local level varies immensely. The goal of this dissertation is to explore the environmental permitting and planning for utility-scale wind and solar projects from the perspective of three stakeholders involved in putting policy into practice: renewable energy developers, state and federal regulators, and environmental non-profit organizations (ENPOs). Chapter one focuses on the experience of renewable energy developers to understand how formal and informal institutions guide development decisions and interactions. Chapter two focuses on the experience of state and federal regulators, contributing to the existing body on regulatory relationships by expanding the exploration beyond pollution and emission control compliance. Chapter three focuses on the experience of ENPOs, seeking to understand how they are currently engaged and what they could contribute to the business-governance relationships of renewable energy development as well as delving into how they balance the conflict of renewable energy deployment and local environmental concerns. This research provides an in-depth look into how each of these three groups thinks about the environmental planning of renewable energy projects and how they interact with one another. The findings of this research emphasize the complexity of many of the challenges all three stakeholders face in this realm, the importance of collaboration and communication in overcoming these challenges, and the local community challenges that will arise in the future.