Nuala Carr

After working in industry for many years, project managing major infrastructure projects through the planning process and experiencing the challanges faced by renewable energy projects, I availed of the opportunity provided by the Bryden Centre to research social acceptance of offshore wind energy.

The overall aim of my research is to develop a holistic understanding of how offshore wind energy community benefit funds are perceived and discoursed across the three spheres of social acceptance; community acceptance, socio-political acceptance and market acceptance. Data collected, from communities, policy-makers and industry, will be analysed to understand if government policies and industry strategies align with community needs and expectations from the provision of community benefit funds.