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

Busch, Henner LU orcid ; Radtke, Jörg and Islar, Mine LU (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)
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author
; and
organization
publishing date
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}},
}