Barriers to social acceptance of renewable energy systems in Colombia

•It was pointed out the development of knowledge with stakeholders working groups.•There is the lack of knowledge by financial institutions involved in renewable energy projects.•It is paramount to consider policies abolishing barriers and benefiting renewable energy investment.•It is necessary to deployment programmes and projects for training in renewable energy technologies.

This work presents the results of a survey conducted to several stakeholders involved with renewable energy systems (RES) in Colombia. It focuses on identifying and analysing three social dimensions (socio-political acceptance, market acceptance, and community acceptance) that affect the penetration of solar, wind, biomass, mini and micro hydraulic, geothermal, tidal, and wave energy systems in the market. The analysis of the survey outcomes shows that a significant percentage of interviewees notice that the development of RES in Colombia has a lot of barriers. Therefore, this contrasts sharply with the existing local capacity and renewable resources. Barriers related to market acceptance dimension would be the most important issue for implementing RES, followed by socio-political acceptance and community acceptance, respectively.