The politics of energy landscapes: the influence of local anti-wind initiatives on state policies in Saxony, Germany

Abstract

Background: In recent years, landscapes in many countries have been transformed by efforts to fight global warming, specifically the shift towards renewable energies such as wind power. This development has been met by growing opposition from local citizens and their initiatives. There is an ongoing debate about whether and how such protests have a real impact on the development of energy landscapes. Methods: Drawing on the rare case of a state government scaling back ambitious targets for the expansion of renewables, the authors were able to analyse the impact of protests in the context of regional spatial planning and, particularly, state policy-making on energy. Conceptually drawing on the Advocacy Coalition Framework and using the method of causal-process tracing, the qualitative study investigates related interactions and decision-making processes in the federal state of Saxony, Germany, between 2011-when targets were increased-and 2013when targets were scaled back. Results: The findings show that the protests grew significantly when the raised expansion targets for renewables were translated into a higher number of potential wind farm sites. The protests, which primarily referred to landscapes, were well-organised and creative. Activists worked through a range of channels across various contexts and several levels of the politico-administrative system, in particular approaching regional spatial planners and a wide range of politicians. In the end, the protests (along with other factors) significantly contributed to the readjustment by the Saxon coalition government of its energy and climate policy and thus to a slowdown of energy-related landscape change. Conclusions: The study confirms that the influence of protesters can greatly exceed the previously studied participation in the planning of sites and the approval process for individual wind farms. Also highlighting other relevant co-influential factors, the paper contributes to the development of a middle-range theory of the impact of local opposition to wind power in the context of energy landscapes.

Policy-relevant insights for regional renewable energy deployment

“…The nature and content of discourses, narratives and visions for renewable energy deployment explain regional differentiation in RE deployment and policy strategies and the choices that influence them. The heuristic approach demonstrated in the table shows, for example, in the intersection of the first row and column how the socio-material dimension relating to the appraisal of RE resources brings to the fore the role of institutions that relate to land-use policies [71] and how sufficient potential development space can be identified, at local and regional levels, to deliver RE capacity [72]. Hence, spatial planning approaches and policies 'for' RE can be created, at different spatial levels, and utilised with a variety of purposes-aiding and accelerating RE expansion, reducing adverse impacts, or sometimes curtailing RE expansion [73].…”

Sensing Collectives

“…Likewise, adherence to statistical approaches and the focus on the average sensory experience of populations, passes over the fact that individuals within a population experience differently due to both their physiological and cultural constitution. Accordingly, light-sensitive people who feel heavily affected by LED flicker were extremely disappointed when an EU risk assessment report only accounted for scientific evidence on LED-related health effects on healthy 'normal' people (LightAware, 2020;SCHEER, 2018). Numerous other cases show how hard it can be to gain public recognition and responses for infrastructure-related sensory tangible environmental impacts like the "sick building syndrome" , polluted air or polluted water (Brown, 1992).…”

Energy-space concept for the transition to a low-carbon energy society

“…Also, non-landscape elements play an important part for public acceptance. The perception and opinion about renewable energy (Saeporsdottir & Olafsdottir, 2020 ), political affiliation (Lintz & Leibenath, 2020 ), assessment of personal or societal costs due to new infrastructure and also psychological response to the landscape view (Spielhofer et al, 2021a ), and demographical characteristics of people (Westerlund, 2020 ) can have impact on the public acceptance for the development of new renewable infrastructure (Cohen et al, 2014 ; van der Horst, 2007 ).…”