Visualisation and Immersion Dome Experience for Inspired Participation

Abstract

Public protests, which lead to increased administrative and permission procedures, are amongst the most important obstacles in development of wind energy projects. The community's fears of visual and acoustic impacts of new power plants are commonly recognized as the weakest aspects of public acceptance. To address these issues Visualisation Dome has been designed to better communicate the economic, political, spatial, ecological and social benefits of wind power plants and the associated risks to local communities. The approach combines the experimental and simulation method. The integrated analysis software tool, which allows assessing the impacts of planed wind power plants underpins their 360-degree video and audio simulations. The Visualisation Dome demonstration resulted in 57% of the interviewed participants improving their opinion of wind power following the experience. Visualisation Dome's novel approach for improving procedural justice of wind energy projects development forms innovative, interactive and streamlined processes, and enables constructive participation of audiences.