Beyond the public: Shifting research perspectives in renewable energy controversies

All around the world projects are being developed as part of the move to more renewable systems of energy production and consumption, also known as the renewable energy transition. As global temperatures are reaching record levels there is an urgency to speed up progress. Unfortunately, numbers show that renewable energy developments are lagging behind and renewable energy ambitions on national levels are insufficient.

The realization of renewable energy transitions worldwide is not purely a technical affair – the use of new technologies by society comes with many challenges. For example, energy systems based on renewable energy become more decentralized compared to large-scale central energy production based on fossil resources. Renewable energy infrastructures are often large, technically complex installations with both social and environmental impact. This means that shifts in energy infrastructure have a substantial impact on our society, lifestyles and living environment. As a consequence of these changes and processes public conflict often occurs. Renewable energy controversies are a common part of renewable energy transitions.

Renewable energy controversies are social conflicts that articulate the values that are at stake for actors affected by new energy development, such as the establishment of a new location for wind turbines. As a controversy develops it reveals (hidden) social dimensions of the development and shows societal and ethical risks, costs and benefits that might have been unanticipated. The values that lead to conflict can concern the energy technology in question, the decision-making procedures or to those involved in or organizing these processes. As such, controversies can also be seen as a form of political engagement that has democratic value.

Conflicts over the planning and development of renewable energy and infrastructure, such as on- and offshore wind, solar, green hydrogen, geothermal, and transmission lines have been prominent over the past decades. These renewable energy controversies emerge when citizens, local residents, action groups or other stakeholders oppose plans or developments. Many controversies have resulted in delay or cancellation of projects. Controversies often end in unconstructive outcomes such as lengthy legal battles between project promoters and the challengers. As ongoing policy and societal efforts are put in effect to advance the global energy transition, it is likely that they will continue to arise in the years to come. As controversies are not a temporary phenomenon, but occur again and again, there is a need for better understanding controversies as well as searching for constructive ways to deal with them - especially given their democratic value.16

Controversies have three general characteristics: (1) they are publicly salient meaning they take place in the public sphere, are covered in the media and have peaks in which the conflict heats up; (2) controversies are complex and dynamic as they involve a multitude of actors and issues which often change over time. Conflicts from the past, in other places or on other technologies can also become intertwined with or fuel renewable energy controversies; and (3) controversies consist of a series of discursive interactions: project developers, government representatives, local residents, the general public, NGO’s and other stakeholders communicate and engage with each other in some kind of way. This means that the language used can be a starting point for further understanding.

These three characteristics reveal the strong relational nature of controversies. They comprise a cycle of interactions between a wide range of actors involved, their expectations of others feeding into engagement strategies and actions, which in turn shape interactions, and so on.

Over the past decades, renewable energy controversies have been widely studied by social science researchers from a variety of fields. The dominant approach here has been to approach controversies as lack of social acceptance, and renewable energy technology (RET) in need of social acceptance, which revolves around attitudes to and engagement with renewable energy technologies and infrastructure. In general, most research focuses on opposition or support of the general public, local residents and communities.

Despite the ongoing attention and developments in research focus within this field since the 80s, the investigation of renewable energy controversies generally (still) revolves around the perspectives, actions and experiences of the general public, local communities and opponents. This has resulted in the neglect of other important stakeholders involved in the development of renewable energy.

This dissertation seeks to address this important gap by focusing on the category of people representing organisations working on or supporting the renewable energy projects themselves in the context of renewable energy controversies. These actors are known as renewable energy technology actors (RET actors). The category of RET actors includes the project developers, their CEOs, engineers and communications managers, the consultants that are hired, trade associations as well as manufacturers and financiers of energy technologies. RET actors can be both private and public actors: depending on their role in projects, governments can be RET actors as well...