Probing how value comes to matter in the energy transition: Good-by-Devicing?

Projektbeschreibung

Bedeutung von Untersuchungen zur Bewertung der Energiewende

Europas Streben nach erneuerbaren Energien wird durch den zunehmenden lokalen Widerstand infrage gestellt, der die Abkehr von fossilen Brennstoffen zu behindern droht. Die herkömmliche Energieplanung, die von durch Fachleute gesteuerten Planungsinstrumenten dominiert wird, hat während der Projektentwicklung ungewollt zu Widerständen geführt. In diesem Zusammenhang zielt das vom Europäischen Forschungsrat finanzierte Projekt Good-by-Devicing darauf ab, dieses Paradigma neu zu definieren, indem soziale Belange bereits in der Planungsphase berücksichtigt und ein neuer Ansatz zur Beschleunigung der Einführung erneuerbarer Energien unter Berücksichtigung gesellschaftlicher Werte geboten werden. Anstatt Widerstände erst in späteren Phasen zu berücksichtigen, setzt diese innovative Initiative bereits in der Planungsphase an. Das Projekt zielt durch die Untersuchung der umstrittenen Entwicklung von „Energieinseln“ in Dänemark, insbesondere auf Bornholm, darauf ab, die Bewertung der Energiewende neu zu gestalten.

Ziel

While the climate crisis accentuates the need to decouple economies from fossil fuels, local opposition in Europe increasingly delays the transition to renewable energy. Arguing that the energy transition has been organised as an expert issue pursued by design tools based in techno-economic valuation, Good-by-Devicing proposes that resistance to renewable energy cannot be solved when opposition has already solidified in the phase of project planning and development. Instead, this project seeks to accommodate broader social concerns over the impacts of the energy transition much earlier, by inquiring into the design phase where experts develop and use critical design tools such as energy scenarios, digital simulations, and procurement schemes. These devices incorporate expert decisions on what concerns to include and exclude in the design of the energy transition. Hypothesising that rising opposition has roots in colliding valuations of the value of energy transition and what concerns should be accounted for in devices, Good-by-Devicing probes a position where renewable energy can be deployed with sufficient pace, but where broader social values are encompassed in the design tools that shape our energy future. To shed light on how value comes to matter in the energy transition, the project uses the case of the contested development of the world's first 'energy islands' in Denmark. The natural island of Bornholm is used as a strategic research site to ask how the energy transition could be valued otherwise, encompassing broader social concerns. Combining perspectives in Science & Technology Studies of Valuation Studies and the Sociology of Expertise, the project provides a new understanding of local opposition to renewables, contributing to the Social Acceptance literature, as well as to Valuation Studies and its new notion of the good economy, exploring how the good fossil-free society could be re-devised to account for social concerns, thereby reducing conflict.