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The research focused on the wood pellet market for private consumers in Germany and has the objective to understand the factors affecting the purchase decisions of wood pellets buy-ers. The aims of the research were achieved by applying the Engel, Kollat, Blackwell model of consumer behaviour, by conducting in-depth interviews and deriving the grounded theory. The application of EKB model revealed that the following groups of factors may influence the con-sumers: cultural (culture and social class), social (family influence), personal (age and lifecycle stage), psychological (believes, motives, attitudes) and unexpected circumstances. In-depth interviews with the buyers of wood pellets helped specify the influencing factors to finally an-swer the research question. The analysis showed that the buyers of wood pellets are influ-enced by family, personal believes and attitudes, and the unexpected circumstances. The most important factors for the buyers are the quality of the pellets and reliability of the supplier. If they are satisfied with the quality of product and service, they will be reluctant to look for an alternative. And on the opposite side, in case the quality of the product or the service is unsat-isfactory this is a limiting factor and will stop the buyer from purchasing this product. Price is an important factor for the buyers of pellets in bags. However, in the situation of volatile mar-ket and exploding prices, the price factor will play a bigger role. Thus, the strategic factors for marketing of pellets is to concentrate on quality and price communication, and to focus on the quality of pellet delivery service.
A step change is needed in the deployment of renewable energy if the triple challenge of ensuring climate change mitigation, energy security, and energy affordability is to be met. Yet, social acceptance of infrastructure projects and policies remains a key concern. While there has been decades of fruitful research on the social acceptance of wind energy and other renewables, much of the extant research is cross-sectional in nature, failing to capture the important dynamic processes that can make or break renewable energy projects. This paper introduces a Special Issue of Energy Policy which focuses on the neglected topic of the dynamics of social acceptance of renewable energy, drawing on contributions made at an international research conference held in St. Gallen (Switzerland) in June 2022. In addition to introducing these papers and drawing out common themes, we also seek to offer some conceptual clarity on the issue of dynamics in social acceptance, taking into account the influence of time, power, and scale in shaping decision-making processes. We conclude by highlighting a number of avenues of potential future research.