Local Politics of Renewable Energy: Project Planning, Siting Conflicts and Citizen Participation

Abstract

Renewable energy will play an important role in the transition to a sustainable energy system. With an increased maturity of renewable energy technologies, issues concerning implementation are becoming more important. The decisions and actions of municipalities and other local actors have a significant influence on the implementation of renewable energy. In this thesis challenges to implementation at the local level in Sweden are analysed for two types of renewable energy technologies: biogas and wind power. The thesis is based on six case studies where written documents and semi-structured qualitative interviews have been the main sources of material. Two research themes are explored. In the first theme the planning and management of locally based renewable energy projects is studied. It is shown that project planning, concerning biogas projects in particular, can be complex and that the conditions of planning can vary considerably between projects. The results indicate that different planning approaches are appropriate for different projects and flexibility is identified as a key aspect of project planning. The second theme deals with conflicts related to the siting of renewable energy facilities, and how these are handled in land-use planning through citizen participation. It is shown that there are both differences and similarities when comparing traditional siting conflicts with those concerning renewable energy facilities. Different theoretical perspectives on siting conflicts and citizen participation are discussed, which have different, and sometimes opposing views, of the goals of participation. It is argued that the expectations of what can be achieved by citizen participation in the handling of siting conflicts must be realistic. More specifically, the results of the case studies show that public consultation, which is the dominating form of citizen participation in Sweden, has some important limitations that must be acknowledged.

• author: Khan, Jamil
• supervisor: [unknown] [unknown]
• opponent: Professor Eckerberg, Katarina, Department of Political Science, Umeå University
• organization: Environmental and Energy Systems Studies
• publishing date: 2004
• type: Thesis
• publication status: published
• subject: Energy Systems
• keywords: lokal politik, kommuner, Energy research, Energiforskning, projektplanering, lokaliseringskonflikt, medborgardeltagande, implementering, vindkraft, förnybar energi, municipalities, local politics, project planning, siting conflict, citizen participation, implementation, biogas, renewable energy, wind power
• pages: 184 pages
• defense location: Department of Physics, Lecture Hall F, Lund Institute of Technology.
• defense date: 2004-10-01 13:15:00
• ISBN: 91-88360-72-5
• language: English
• LU publication?: yes
• additional info: Article: Khan, J. (2004) “Siting conflicts in renewable energy projects in Sweden: a biogas case study”, forthcoming in Å. Boholm and R. Löfstedt, (Eds.) Facility Siting: Risk, Power and Identity in Land-Use Planning, Earthscan, London. Article: Khan, J. (2003) “Wind power planning in three Swedish municipalities”, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Vol. 46, No. 4, pp. 563-581. Article: Khan, J. (2004) “Public consultation in planning: experience from wind power planning in Sweden”, submitted to Environment and Planning A. Article: Khan, J. (2004) “The importance of local context in the planning of environmental projects: examples from two biogas cases”, revised version submitted to Local Environment.
• id: 015d2303-14ea-453d-8ebd-9d136114c9b2 (old id 467360)
• date added to LUP: 2016-04-04 10:35:01
• date last changed: 2018-11-21 20:59:35