Safe havens for energy democracy? Analysing the low-carbon transitions of Danish energy islands

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7424482
AutoresHolger Busch (0000-0002-0468-2155, Lund University), Jörg Radtke (0000-0002-6540-8096, Research Institute for Sustainability at GFZ), Mine Islar (0000-0001-9479-4734, Lund University)
Año2023
Volumen33
Número2
Páginas227-251
Fecha de publicación2023-04-18
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaZeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1430-6387 • E-ISSN: 2366-2638
EditorialSpringer VS (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s41358-023-00347-5
OpenAlexW4366280107
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas94

Denmark has long been known as a pioneer in renewable energy technology development. Apart from technological leadership, Denmark has also been the home to many community-based renewable energy initiatives. Citizen involvement in local energy projects has been key to increasing and maintaining acceptance to wind, solar and biomass. Three Danish islands (Bornholm, Samsø and Ærø) have been particularly active in promoting renewables. All three have claimed the title “energy island” and two of them have established specific institutions to promote further RE projects. In this article, we investigate community energy projects on two of the islands (Samsø and Ærø) through an Energy Democracy lens. The purpose of this investigation is to understand how the development on these islands relate to the concept of Energy Democracy: we outline how democratic processes and institutions shape the development of the local infrastructure and how this development, in turn, shaped local democracy. We found that many of the features of Energy Democracy were present in the two cases. Our research highlights a number of shortcomings of the concept of energy democracy, most importantly, a certain disregard for questions of energy justice and a blindness towards questions of scale

Danish · Democracy · Political science · Politics · Renewable energy · Integrated Energy Systems Optimization · Law · Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance · Ecology