Informed Citizen Panels on the Swiss Electricity Mix 2035: Longer-Term Evolution of Citizen Preferences and Affect in Two Cities

Abstract

For a successful transition to low-carbon electricity supply, public support is essential. Citizen preferences are best understood in the process of informed citizen panels, where citizens are informed about the pros and cons of various electricity technologies and spend time reflecting on the trade-offs. We investigated how information about electricity technologies and their sustainability impacts can change citizens’ preferences and affect for the complete Swiss electricity mix 2035. The citizens received information as factsheets and, during workshops, discussed in groups and built their preferred electricity mix using an interactive tool. The informed citizen panel (N = 33) in the Swiss city of Geneva showed high support for domestic renewable technologies and end-use efficiency, as well as low support for net electricity import, natural gas, and nuclear power. Preferences and affect for unfamiliar technologies changed after receiving information and remained stable even in the longer term four weeks after. Preferences and affect for already familiar technologies, like hydropower, barely changed. The same procedure in the two Swiss cities of Geneva and Zurich (N = 46) enabled the identification of robust support for renewable technologies and efficiency with only minor context-specific differences.

Efficiency versus Equity in Spatial Siting of Electricity Generation: Citizen Preferences in a Serious Board Game in Switzerland

“…In order to form and elicit citizen preferences for the spatial siting of the full electricity mix in Switzerland, we adapted and merged two existing methodologies: informed citizen panels for the formation and elicitation of informed citizen preferences [42,44,45] and a serious board game with related evaluations before, during, and after the game [58,61,63,64]. The rationale here is that, in order to allow the citizens to make informed judgments that are close to their actual values, we, first of all, involve them in an informational process to fill their knowledge gaps, reduce misconceptions, and expose them to the judgments and perspectives of other citizens.…”

“…As shown in Figure 1, the workshop started with an explanation of its goals, content, and the rules of participation for participants' consent. Since previous research in Switzerland showed awareness gaps and misconceptions about electricity technologies [44,45,53], the participants were first introduced to short posters about each of the 11 technologies, including brief descriptions of how the technologies function, what their current situations are in Switzerland, as well as photos. The participants were also shown a short movie about the Swiss Energy Strategy 2050 [65].…”

“…On a parallel track, social scientific literature to date mostly focuses on assessing citizen preferences for individual technologies or technology mixes without any spatial dimensions [42][43][44][45][46]. Since citizens show ever-increasing preferences for renewable technologies [46][47][48] and since most renewable technologies are needed anyway to reach ambitious transition targets, limited useful conclusions can be drawn from these generic technology preferences.…”

“…The opinions of non-experts are often distorted by misconceptions and awareness gaps [53,54], for example, when nuclear power is believed to emit direct greenhouse gas emissions, natural gas is perceived as renewable, or enhanced geothermal systems are thought to have a potential to induce a vulcanic eruption [44,53]. Especially for new technologies [44,45,55], the citizens may not yet have fully formed and stable opinions and first need to go through the process of preference formation to be able to articulate these preferences [56,57]. The process of preference formation is cognitively demanding and requires motivation, effort, time, and skill [58][59][60].…”

“…The process of preference formation is cognitively demanding and requires motivation, effort, time, and skill [58][59][60]. Various methodologies have been proposed in order to engage citizens in the process of learning, for instance, by reading factsheets and participating in group discussions [42][43][44][45]. In other environmental fields, serious games have been used to simplify highly complex topics for individual learning as well as for facilitating the participant's appreciation of the opinions of others [58,61].…”