About Acciona Energía
ACCIONA Energía, the world’s largest 100% renewable energy company without a fossil fuel legacy, has been operating in Australia for over two decades. Their unique ‘build, own and operate’ model demonstrates a long-term commitment to the regions where they work. It launched the ACCIONA Energía Community Hub to keep Australians updated at all stages of its nationwide renewable energy projects. The platform also allows community members to share views, ask questions, and get involved in small grants and scholarship programs. It features community discussions and information on upcoming events. This online platform encourages community members to “have their say” about the future of their local community.
Erin Mulquiny, Community Benefits Lead at ACCIONA Energía, shared with us how the organisation is using Social Pinpoint to deliver the best community engagement experiences.
The Goal
Switching from a legacy community engagement system to a modern and easy-to-use platform, enhancing the experience for both ACCIONA Energía staff and community members.
Before adopting Social Pinpoint, ACCIONA Energía’s Community and Stakeholder Engagement team used a legacy online platform for public engagement to inform community members about current and upcoming renewable energy projects. However, the team recognised the need for a platform that would be easier to use for busy staff, with world-class customer support, and more innovative engagement tools. A more modern look for ACCIONA Energía’s engagement site would offer the community a better engagement experience.
This led ACCIONA Energía to switch to Social Pinpoint. Erin Mulquiny emphasised ACCIONA Energía’s need for localised human support in Australia, stressing the importance of quick response times alongside the appealing design capabilities offered by Social Pinpoint for their engagement site.
“With the system that we were previously using, I was often speaking to someone who was overseas who would take a very long time to respond. Often, with some of the issues I raised, there was no answer,” explained Erin Mulquiny. “That’s been what’s so good about Social Pinpoint. I can email Sharon and Kade, and I can get a response in under 24 hours, always very fast for things that are popping up, which are often quite urgent. Things change really quickly in the community engagement space. It’s really important to feel like you’re supported.”
The ACCIONA Energía team now has access to 40+ digital engagement tools that staff can easily drag and drop to create unique digital engagement experiences for every stage of their wind farm projects.
“There has been a lot of feedback from the team since we transitioned to Social Pinpoint,” continued Erin, “that it also looks a lot cleaner with a better way to structure our pages.”
The Approach
Adopting a hybrid engagement approach to create an informed community and seek acceptance, regardless of differing opinions in renewable energy.
ACCIONA Energía has demonstrated success in its engagement efforts by being both proactive in reaching out to community members about renewable energy initiatives and quick to respond about concerns. By engaging with their communities in person while also informing community members and closing the loop online via their digital engagement platform, ACCIONA Energía has shown its dedication to hybrid engagement to ensure that everyone is kept up to date with each project’s progress.
Erin highlighted the importance of digital engagement as a central source of truth in gaining and maintaining social licence with project communities.
“There’s a lot of busy young parents and young people in general, who tend to be more supportive of renewable energy and would participate if they had time. Often, all the time they have is to quickly Google the project so they can understand more about it and see questions from their community. They can glance at where the proposed project will sit and see who the key contact people are for that project. It’s so important to have that online engagement and that accessible source of truth … to be able to engage with people who previously may not have had time to come to an information session. So I think it’s an invaluable thing that you should have as part of your engagement.”
By utilising Social Pinpoint’s digital engagement tools, ACCIONA Energía has streamlined the process for community members to make online contributions and stay informed about current and upcoming projects. ACCIONA Energía is able to offer transparency and build trust with members of the community by ensuring that they have access to real-time updates and opportunities for meaningful participation.
The Social Map tool for instance, is one of the key reasons that ACCIONA Energía switched to Social Pinpoint. It allows community members to have a bird’s eye overview of the area for each project, discover where wind turbines may be located, and it give residents the ability to leave comments and feedback.
“I’d previously implemented Social Pinpoint for a top university and used it a lot as a consultant,” said Erin, describing her professional experience before joining ACCIONA Energía. “I set it up for another organisation as well. I know how easy it is to use. The interactive map has been one of the key reasons that we moved to Social Pinpoint. The previous system had a mapping tool of some sort, but it looked very basic. The Social Pinpoint maps looks really good on mobile, which is realistically where most of our community members are accessing the site. Social Pinpoint is great.”
Erin described how she and her team even use the ACCIONA Energía Community Hub to engage with community members in person, and the advantage of having access to the best digital mapping tool in hand. “I went out and spoke to a neighbour and they just want to be able to zoom all the way into their house. Being able to do that with them in their home has been really, really nice and they can understand exactly where the turbines are in relation to their property. We can collect all that feedback anywhere and make it centrally available to whoever needs it.”
Using the Social Map tool has allowed community members to leave a pin and provide localised feedback regarding topics such as the environment, cultural heritage, construction, engineering, roads, and general comments. Using the Social Map has helped to demonstrate ACCIONA Energía’s commitment to ensuring that all community members are acknowledged and heard, collecting valuable feedback to support the project.
ACCIONA Energía has also employed Social Pinpoint’s Question and Answer (Q&A) tool to encourage community involvement. This tool allows members of the public to ask questions, while enabling ACCIONA Energía staff members to respond transparently, accurately, and address any misconceptions. To ensure respectful engagement all questions are human-moderated to ensure they meet the terms of use for the site.
“You can see that there is a high level of engagement and get a really quick breakdown of the types of comments that are coming through on the map and the Q&A tool,” said Erin. “It enables us to quickly categorise that data into a story that the business can understand. A story that can then be a foundation for making decisions about the project’s next steps and how we need to respond.”
By also incorporating a “Subscribe” button on each project’s page, ACCIONA Energía has ensured that communities can stay informed and engaged throughout each project’s lifecycle. This feature makes it easy to sign users up for ACCIONA Energía’s mailing list(s) to allow community members to receive real-time notifications and updates to keep them in the loop about project updates.
In addition to keeping the community updated on projects, ACCIONA Energía has created a dedicated space on its engagement site for community groups and organisations to apply for community benefit programs using the Form tool. These programs include scholarships, small grants, and a neighbourhood benefit program. Since beginning operations in 2002, ACCIONA Energía has contributed more than $3.7 million to local communities through these grant programs.
These grants support community groups fostering goodwill and collaboration during renewable energy initiatives. Digital engagement tools such as Forms and Timelines are used to help facilitate this process. Erin shared a heartwarming story, demonstrating the impact of grant programs on communities.
“Often, we can give a few thousand dollars to small clubs that just wouldn’t be able to function without that funding. For instance, I was up in Gunning one morning to celebrate our grant recipients, and I was talking to a gentleman who runs their Master’s Rugby League Program. He said that $1,500, which doesn’t seem like much to us, is what keeps that club running for the guys who are over 30 and live in these regional communities,” recounted Erin. “That’s a really important part of their connection and their mental health. So that’s a really cool part of the job.”
The Result
ACCIONA Energía’s Community and Stakeholder Engagement team in Australia is world-leading in community engagement practices.
By leveraging its ACCIONA Energía Community Hub to both educate community members about upcoming projects and to foster informed engagement, ACCIONA Energía has collected nearly 2,000 online contributions in just seven months of using Social Pinpoint’s engagement tools. The Form tool alone has been used to capture over 1,600 completed surveys and online applications.
The Future
Improving energy literacy and conducting more thorough engagement to better understand each communities’ needs and wants.
The MacIntyre Wind Farm is set to be ACCIONA Energía’s largest renewable energy facility and one of the world’s biggest onshore wind farms. This project provides a significant economic opportunity for regional towns where there may not be a lot of job opportunities. So, being able to hire locals and support economic growth is where ACCIONA Energía sees success.
While online digital engagement is just one aspect of how ACCIONA Energía engages with the community, the organisation recognises the importance of it and how it is such an integral part of each project and to the company’s success.
