Griffith University is undertaking a major international project to help address community conflict and disruption over wind farms and their implementation in Korea.

Associate Professor Richard Hindmarsh, of the Griffith School of Environment, has been successful in receiving a grant of about $36,000 from the Australia-Korea Foundation (AKF). His Korean partner is Dr Hyomin Kim of Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology.

The AKF grants program strengthens links between Australia and the Republic of Korea by supporting activities that help promote mutual understanding and foster stronger relations.

The project ‘Towards more effective renewable energy transitions in Korea’ will offer major benefits at fundamental and practical levels to address the pressing challenge of low-carbon emissions through new participatory management approaches for renewable energy.

“Important and innovative insights will be gained for planning and policy systems to develop improved community engagement to ensure more effective transitions to renewable energy, as well as future energy security and sustainability,” Associate Professor Hindmarsh says.

Significant local factors are found to complicate development in Korea because local communities typically experience adverse place-disruption.

Through a policy learning approach, the project aims to conduct analysis of wind energy planning, particularly focusing on enhancing local community engagement and facilitating local support around wind-farm siting to inform more effective renewable energy transitions.

The project will involve policy analysis and a case study in the Jeju province, drawing on comparative studies in Australia and globally.

“This is an important and ongoing contested area and this project will provide policy lessons for both onshore and offshore wind in Korea,” Associate Professor Hindmarsh says.

“The project provides a new dimension in the Australia-Korea bilateral relationship in providing a high-level platform for dialogue and research on the mutually-pressing issue of renewable energy transitions in our respective societies.

“The project will considerably increase understanding of the perspectives of affected local communities, policy-makers, developers, and other highly involved stakeholders in wind energy development for institutional redesign.

“It involves participatory community engagement approaches that combine top-down and bottom-up approaches, especially in relation to renewable energy transitions, sustainable power generation systems and climate change adaptation, particularly through the scope of interviews and policy seminars, along with the project report, other publications, and multi-stream dissemination.”