Energy is an essential part of people’s lives as it is needed for many daily activities. Various energy projects have been planned and implemented to provide households with energy, such as natural gas extraction and wind parks. These energy projects may have various negative and positive consequences for people, which can elicit various responses from the public. For understanding public responses to energy projects, it is critical to consider that people often have little control over these projects and their associated consequences, as energy projects are typically controlled by external parties (e.g., governments and industry). In such situations, trust in responsible parties is an important factor to explain public responses, such as negative emotions, positive emotions and public acceptability of energy projects. Particularly integrity-based trust is related to public acceptability of energy projects. Furthermore, people are likely to cope with the risks of externally controlled energy projects by engaging in others-focused coping: urging responsible parties to take actions to reduce the risks. This novel type of problem-focused coping has not been identified before, but can play an important role in how people cope with risks of externally controlled energy projects. All in all, this dissertation suggests that reducing negative and increasing positive consequences of energy projects, and having trustworthy parties could help facilitate positive rather than negative public responses to energy projects. This is important for both ensuring the well-being of people as well as the socially responsible implementation of energy projects in order to ensure a reliable energy supply.