Buffeted by the infamous Roaring Forties, King Island, Tasmania, experiences some of the strongest winds in the world. The 1,100 sq km island also plays host to a stormy battle over Hydro Tasmania's proposal to construct a 200-turbine wind farm, which if successful would be the biggest wind farm in the Southern Hemisphere.

Australia wants to generate 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 – a target that would mostly be reached through windpower generation. But opponents of wind energy, ranging from national pressure groups to influential radio 'shock jocks' and respected business leaders, threaten to undermine the country's move away from its traditional dependence on cheap coal through campaigns the renewable energy industry has branded deceitful and misinformed.

"A very small minority has become very vocal and essentially created a perception that communities are opposed to wind farms," Kane Thornton, deputy CEO of the Clean Energy Council.

"We know that not to be the case – we know it from specific projects that have been developed and continue to be developed and we know it from polling data."

Opposition to wind comes in stark contrast to widespread enthusiasm for solar as an alternative energy source. Australia is undergoing a "solar revolution", according to Tim Flannery, head of the Climate Commission, which found more than 10% of Australians, or 2.5 million people, use solar power for their homes. There are now more than one million rooftop solar systems in Australia, up from 8,000 in 2007.

Utility-scale solar is about to take off too, with news that one of Australia's largest utilities, AGL Energy, completed financing for its 155MW solar PV project in western New South Wales (NSW).

Deceitful information and legislative barriers

But the public are arguably a long way from pressing for a wind energy future. Spurred on by misconceived health concerns, the federal opposition Liberal-National Coalition has vowed to introduce onerous conditions on operators if it wins power in the September 7 election, such as mandating 24-hour noise monitoring at the industry's cost. And at the state level, New South Wales and Victoria – governed by their own Liberal-National administrations – have either implemented or drafted proposals to introduce rigorous planning regulations.

"Our politicians have responded with tighter planning regimes and in some cases a regime that has increased the cost of technology and wiped out projects altogether," Thornton said.

Vestas group senior vice president, Morten Albaek, said the wind industry is being attacked by "media-savvy and politically influential" adversaries who often display "a brazen disregard for factual information." The Danish wind turbine manufacturer – the largest in the world and supplier of over half of Australia's turbines – saw turbines with a maximum generating capacity of 1.7 gigawatts (GW) postponed, delayed or blocked last year because of public acceptance issues. To counter what the company now considers to be a major business risk, Vestas launched its global Act on Facts campaign in June.

But facts appear to be absent from anti-wind farm websites such as Stop These Things (STT), which describes itself as a "kitchen table group of citizens concerned about what is happening across rural and regional Australia, [and] by the harm being done by the wind industry, in partnership with governments".

Facts also don't appear to matter much to the nominated chair of opposition leader Tony Abbott's Business Advisory Council, Maurice Newman – a former chair of the ABC and Australian Stock Exchange. He told Guardian Australia, that science no longer supports global warming and wind farms are a "crime against the people."

Responding to entrenched opposition

Andrew Catchpole, director of corporate services at Hydro Tasmania, said there was a lot of interest in its King Island proposal, TasWind, from anti-wind groups hailing from outside the area.

"What's interesting, though, is local people are not silly – they saw that for what it is. Without any particular action on our behalf, the community was very quick to differentiate, or question, the sources of information they were getting."

Catchpole, who managed the early phase of the TasWind project, said providing facts to communities affected by wind farms is very important. But wherever available, developers must reference independent studies. "People have a high sensitivity to vested interests whether they're our vested interests as a developer or the vested interests of other groups."

One way of managing local opposition, Climate and Health Alliance convener Fiona Armstrong recommended, is to explore and understand how people feel about the place they live in relation to engagement around renewable energy projects.

"The contribution of psychologists in relation to understanding place protection is key to understanding the issues at stake," she said. Not enough is made of the opportunities renewable energy offers for regional and rural renewal in areas that are struggling.

Ketan Joshi, a research and communications officer at Australia's largest wind energy developer Infigen, said there are good, scientific reasons why people perceive a dangerous thing as harmless – such as smoking – and a harmless thing as dangerous. Recounting how he observed a man smoking a cigarette protesting at an anti-wind farm rally, Joshi told ABC Radio's Sunday Extra: "Far from the fringe paranoia often attributed to people who believe wind turbines are doing them harm, we mostly see honest individuals who have been taken in by a calculated campaign, designed to exploit several key vulnerabilities of the way we perceive danger."

Developers must therefore include consideration of the psychosocial impacts of the project such as incorporating local place-based and psychological assessments of group environments or community attitudes, which conventional social impact assessments do not include.

Vestas' Albaek said the global wind industry has not been "professional enough, innovative enough, and persistent enough in continuing to convey the facts about the economical and environmental benefits of wind energy."

He reckons the wind industry needs to "lift its game". Unfortunately for Vestas and its industry counterparts this is a game played without a referee and one that it cannot take winning for granted.

• This article was amended on 7 August 2013 to remove reference to Ketan Joshi as a psychologist by training and to correct the size of King Island from 1,100sq m to 1,100 sq km.

This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Become GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox