To address climate change and energy independence, the North American electricity system will need to transition away from fossil fuel infrastructure towards renewable energy in the coming decades. New policies will increasingly locate wind and solar projects in rural communities. Yet, local opposition to these projects is seen as the greatest barrier to renewable energy implementation. This paper will seek to answer a number of questions: (1) How does popular reaction to renewable energy policies affect political outcomes? (2) How can we maintain political support for and quell political opposition to renewable energy policy during implementation?

In 2009, the Liberal government in Ontario, Canada passed the largest renewable energy policy in North America, the Green Energy and Green Economy Act. Modeled after Germany’s feed-in tariff policy, this program allows individuals to build wind turbines throughout the province and sign long-term contracts with the government. While many groups are actively developing projects, the policy is seen as unpopular in rural areas and has led to a large political mobilization with over 50 local, anti-wind groups across the province. Many commentators attribute the incumbent Liberal government’s loss of their majority in the fall 2011 election to rural dissatisfaction with wind turbine development.

This paper presents quantitative, causal analysis on the role wind turbine siting played in the election at both the provincial scale and the riding (district) level. The differential placement of wind turbines across rural political ridings is primarily a function of wind resource level, which is exogenous to political riding boundaries. This provides a natural experiment that can be used to study the electoral consequences of renewable energy policies. 

Using an original panel dataset of wind energy projects in Ontario, merged with census data and electoral data, I conduct an analysis at both the district level and at the polling station level. Using a difference-in-difference estimator and then a matching strategy, I identify the scale of electoral losses attributable to the implementation of provincial renewable energy policy during the election. More broadly, this study provides evidence for the political ramification of ambitious renewable energy policy.