Across the Czech Republic, the wind was in the air—but not in the ballots. Over this past election weekend, twenty-one Czech municipalities held local referendums on proposed wind turbine projects, and twenty of them returned a clear “no.” The lone exception squeaked through with 50.5 percent of the vote, a margin so thin that nobody could call it a mandate. For a country that has long claimed to care about climate change and clean energy, the results were sobering. Wind power currently makes up less than one percent of Czechia’s electricity mix, far behind many of its European neighbors. Opinion polls consistently show that Czechs like the idea of wind turbines in the abstract: they support renewable energy in principle, they want cleaner air, and they say they expect their country to do its part in fighting climate change. But when a turbine is proposed near a particular village, the mood changes. The pesky “not in my backyard” effect—the NIMBY syndrome—turns a general enthusiasm for green energy into a neighborhood fight. The gap between those two attitudes is the story of this referendum weekend. It is also a story about mistrust, poor communication, political opportunism, and the surprising power of living next to something long enough to stop fearing it.
Industry insiders say they were not surprised, and they point to a tangle of forces stacked against wind power long before any vote. Štěpán Chalupa, chairman of the Chamber of Renewable Energy Sources, describes the situation as the product of nontransparent “acceleration zones”—areas designated by the state to speed up renewable development—combined with heightened emotions and a steady diet of disinformation. “The whole situation around wind turbines in Czechia has been shaped by the non-transparent designation of acceleration zones and heightened emotions, which have created fertile ground for disinformation to flourish,” he says. “Deliberate populist politicization of the issue has added to this. Ordinary politicians and mayors have become afraid to address it.” When local leaders fear the issue, they stay silent, and silence leaves room for rumors to grow. Chalupa also criticizes the behavior of some developers, which he says has soured the atmosphere. Mayors have told him that they were already working with one investor on a fair agreement, only to have another company appear and try to force them into a planning contract by threatening to bring an acceleration zone into their area anyway. That kind of strong-arm approach may win a signature, but it does not win trust. A year of scare tactics did more damage than any engineering concern. Martin Sedlák, program director at the Modern Energy Union, calls it “three-quarters of a year of scaremongering,” during which pressure groups tried to exploit the issue politically and spread untrue rumors. He does not blame residents for being anxious. “It’s understandable that local residents are worried,” he says. But the anxiety was not born in a vacuum; it was cultivated by people with a message to push.
Part of the problem, activists and industry experts say, is that the Czech state has failed to communicate strategically about why wind power matters. Sedlák points to Poland as a contrast. Polish government representatives openly say that renewable energy is central to the country’s energy security, and that message has shaped public attitudes in a more positive direction. In Czechia, by contrast, political leaders have been lukewarm at best. Some prominent coalition figures, including Filip Turek, the government’s Green Deal envoy and honorary president of the Motorists for Themselves party, and Tomio Okamura, speaker of the Chamber of Deputies and leader of the Freedom and Direct Democracy movement, are firmly opposed to wind turbines. Their voices give legitimacy to resistance. Over the past year, dozens of disinformation events have been held across the country, with speakers railing against wind turbines and spreading claims that they harm human and animal health. The main speakers at those events—Hynek Beran, Marek Obrtel and Jaroslav Novák—all ran for the Senate this time around. Their anti-wind campaigns may have helped shape village votes, but the candidates themselves failed to break through; none of them made it to the second round. Sedlák finds a silver lining in that result. “It’s a good message that, at least at the national level, this kind of scaremongering isn’t working yet,” he says. But the damage at the local level was already done. He also warns that the failure to communicate strategically will not end with wind turbines. “Today, wind turbines have taken the hit; in a few years it could be data centers or even new nuclear reactors.” The deeper problem, in his view, is that Czechia lacks an authority capable of shifting the debate away from rumors and toward a realistic discussion of the benefits and downsides for each municipality. Without that, every energy project becomes a target for fear.
The one place that said yes offers a clue about how to change minds. Dětřichov, a small municipality in the Svitavy region, voted narrowly in favor of wind turbines, with 50.5 percent supporting and 49.5 percent against. Why did Dětřichov break the pattern? Perhaps because its residents had lived with wind turbines for almost twenty years. Less than twelve kilometers away lies Anenská Studánka, a village that has hosted six turbines for nearly two decades, and locals there have no problem with their operation. On the contrary, they are planning to build more. This local experience matters. Bohumil Frantál, a social geographer at the Czech Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geonics, has studied the phenomenon and found that people tend to be more supportive of wind turbines when they already have direct experience with them. “People gradually get used to wind turbines, just as they do to any other structure,” he says. “In municipalities where there are already wind turbines nearby, people have more direct experience of them, are less afraid of negative impacts and tend to see the positive benefits.” The finding is intuitive: once the imagined monster becomes a familiar part of the landscape, it turns into something much more ordinary. A turbine is just a tall, whirring machine that brings revenue to the village and helps keep electricity prices down. But that kind of calm familiarity can only develop over time, and only if a project survives the initial storm of suspicion. In most places, it never gets the chance.
Nowhere is that clearer than in Kačice, a village where the story is still unfolding. The project there is at an advanced stage. NOHO Energy, the investor, has had a planning agreement with the municipality since 2024, laying out obligations for both sides. Two years ago, the village held a survey in which 55.4 percent of voters supported the plan. This time, by contrast, 59 percent voted against it. It is a dramatic reversal, and it raises an important legal and political question: what happens now? In this particular case, the referendum result does not automatically kill the project. The question put to residents was not “should wind turbines be built?” but rather “do you agree that the municipality of Kačice should provide cooperation in the preparation, permitting or construction of wind turbines within its cadastral territory?” The majority vote against means the municipal leadership is obliged not to actively participate in preparing and permitting the project. That could slow things down, complicate permitting, and create a legal headache, but it is not necessarily a total veto. Ondřej Ludvík, technology director at NOHO Energy, says the company acknowledges the result but remains determined to make its case. “We acknowledge the result of the vote, in which Kačice residents decided that their municipality should not provide cooperation for the construction of wind turbines. At the same time, it motivates us to explain the specific benefits of wind power more clearly, especially cheaper energy for households and significant revenue for the municipality. We will continue discussions related to the planning agreement once the new municipal council has been formed.” In other words, the door is not closed; it has simply been pulled almost shut. Whether it opens again may depend on the council elected in the final results.
Behind all these local battles lies a larger question that no one wants to answer directly: if not wind, then what? Charles Kulček, a project manager at NOHO, puts it bluntly. Even if coal plants stay open longer, they will not last until new nuclear units are built. And if Czechs keep saying no to wind turbines in referendums, they need to propose an alternative—or accept that electricity prices will rise, perhaps considerably. That is an uncomfortable message for a country that wants cheap energy and clean air but struggles to accept the visible infrastructure that clean energy requires. Martin Sedlák also notes that if a municipality has already signed a planning agreement with an investor, there could be a court dispute, or the two sides could reach a new agreement. “We’ll see,” he says. “It’s far too early to judge how this will turn out. It will depend on the position of the new municipal council.” In the end, the referendum weekend in Czechia was not just about wind turbines. It was about how a democracy handles the gap between public opinion and local reality, between scientific consensus and emotional fear, between long-term energy security and short-term discomfort. The twenty “no” votes and one narrow “yes” are not the final chapter. They are a warning. A country cannot transition its energy system if it refuses to build anything new, and it cannot build anything new if its citizens no longer trust the process. The challenge for Czechia is not just to persuade people that wind turbines are safe and beneficial. It is to restore the belief that these decisions are made fairly, transparently, and with respect for the people who will live next to them. That is a much taller task than raising a tower of steel and blades—but without it, the wind will keep blowing, and the country will keep saying no.