Heterogeneous energy infrastructures in Europe
Layering and orchestrating Positive Energy Districts
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12950546 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Andy Karvonen (0000-0002-0688-9547, Lund University, corresponding author), Dieter Bruggeman (0000-0001-5278-081X, Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Dick Magnusson (0000-0001-7060-9282, Linköping University), Michael Ornetzeder (0000-0003-3956-7090, Austrian Academy of Sciences), Harald Rohracher (0000-0003-3945-0183, Linköping University) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Publication date | 2025-04-10 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sustainability Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1862-4057 • E-ISSN: 1862-4065 |
| Publisher | Springer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s11625-025-01676-w |
| OpenAlex | W4409326741 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 65 |
Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) have rapidly emerged as a dominant policy instrument in Europe to accelerate urban climate transitions. PEDs target the district scale to optimise energy system performance through a combination of technical and social interventions. These activities are driven by an engineering logic that considers energy infrastructures to be rational, integrated, and governable. In practice, PED stakeholders engage with heterogeneous infrastructure configurations that are influenced by multiple historical, political, and social specificities. In this article, we use the notion of ‘sociotechnical dispositif’ to characterise the processes of reconstituting the heterogeneous infrastructures of three PEDs in Sweden, Belgium, and Austria. We compare and contrast processes of layering the components in each district as well as processes of orchestrating stakeholders towards shared end goals. The findings contribute to critical infrastructure studies by revealing how European policy ambitions for energy transformation collide with heterogeneous infrastructures and by identifying the situated, contingent, and emergent characteristics of reconfiguring infrastructures at the district scale. The study of layering and orchestrating also highlights opportunities for PED stakeholders to develop and practice new forms of decentralised governance within each district that have the potential to influence broader urban transformations
Biology · Energy (signal processing · Geography · Landscape ecology · Layering · Physics · Sustainable development · Energy and Environment Impacts · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance · Water Governance and Infrastructure · Ecology
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| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |