Community preferences in energy justice: Perspectives on solar farm projects

As utility-scale solar developments expand, understanding how stakeholders prioritize dimensions of energy justice becomes crucial for effective community engagement and benefit-sharing. This study uses a multi-method approach to assess the relative importance of four justice dimensions (Recognition, Distributional, Procedural, and Restorative) in variants of the Community Benefits Agreement for a solar farm development sited in Maui, Hawaii. Each variant added benefits associated with one dimension to a baseline plan. Adding Recognition Justice benefits had the greatest impact, however preferences were elicited, with strong consistency across and within participants. Adding Restorative Justice benefits had the next greatest impact, followed by Procedural and Distributional Justice benefits, which were similar. Notably, these preferences were similar across individuals who were and were not from stakeholder groups with special U.S. Department of Energy status (disadvantaged communities, Recognized Tribes, labor groups), whether based on self-identification or living in communities with that status. These findings suggest that emphasizing recognition-based approaches in Community Benefits Plans may be particularly effective in gaining community support for solar developments. • Adding environmental justice benefits makes solar farms more attractive. • Recognitive Justice benefits have the greatest impact, followed by Restorative, Distributional, and Procedural Justice. • These preferences are robust across elicitation mode, for groups and individuals. • These preferences are similar for stakeholder groups with and without special status. • Proactive attention to Recognition Justice could improve solar farm siting processes.