ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on an experiment in public involvement in a community-level technology assessment of the widespread deployment of solar and renewable technologies. It presents an overview and brief assessment of the community-based technology assessment from several perspectives. The chapter examines the participants and methods and forms of participation to evaluate the representativeness and possible participatory biases of the process. It reviews the results of the community-based assessment by comparing the results to several studies of renewable energy impacts, conducted by experts in the field. The chapter also focuses on the results of the Decentralized Solar Energy Technology Assessment Program. It explains to regard social impact assessment and environmental impact assessment as being subsumed under the more general concept of technology assessment. Public involvement in technology assessment can improve the quality and validity of social impact assessment in a number of ways.
