Safe havens for energy democracy? Analysing the low-carbon transitions of Danish energy islands
(2023) In Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft 33(2). p.227-251- Abstract
- 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... (More)
- 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. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/f3088832-eeab-4a80-bb1d-e17d9cd47da1
- author
- Busch, Henner LU ; Radtke, Jörg and Islar, Mine LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2023-04-18
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Energy democracy, Community energy, Denmark, Renewable energy, Energy justice, Energy islands
- in
- Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft
- volume
- 33
- issue
- 2
- pages
- 227 - 251
- publisher
- Springer
- ISSN
- 1430-6387
- DOI
- 10.1007/s41358-023-00347-5
- project
- Of People, PV, Power Lines: Energy Islands in the Nordics
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- f3088832-eeab-4a80-bb1d-e17d9cd47da1
- date added to LUP
- 2023-04-19 09:49:34
- date last changed
- 2024-05-30 14:55:15
@article{f3088832-eeab-4a80-bb1d-e17d9cd47da1, abstract = {{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.}}, author = {{Busch, Henner and Radtke, Jörg and Islar, Mine}}, issn = {{1430-6387}}, keywords = {{Energy democracy; Community energy; Denmark; Renewable energy; Energy justice; Energy islands}}, language = {{eng}}, month = {{04}}, number = {{2}}, pages = {{227--251}}, publisher = {{Springer}}, series = {{Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft}}, title = {{Safe havens for energy democracy? Analysing the low-carbon transitions of Danish energy islands}}, url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s41358-023-00347-5}}, doi = {{10.1007/s41358-023-00347-5}}, volume = {{33}}, year = {{2023}}, }