ANT Perspective on Wind Power Planning and Social Acceptance—A Call for Interdisciplinarity

Introducing the lens of markets-in-the-making to transition studies: The case of the Danish wind power market agencement

“…The first European Wind Atlas was published in 1989 by the Danish National Laboratory for Renewable Energy, Risø (today, DTU Wind and Energy Systems). Based on a broad mapping of wind speeds 50 m above ground and knowledge of local terrain characteristics, it was possible early on to calculate the estimated energy production (Hvidtfelt- Nielsen, 2001;Kirkegaard and Nyborg, 2021). By transforming 'wind speed' into calculable energy production and potential revenues, the Wind Atlas helped to incentivize wind power development from the perspective of both the Danish state and private investors.…”

The landrush of wind energy, its socio-material workings, and its political consequences: On the entanglement of land and wind assemblages in Denmark

“…Second, the upscaling and technological advancements in wind power generation has led to large utility-scale projects requiring more extensive land areas, which has gone hand in hand with a decoupling of the wind estate from the land estate (Horst and Vermeylen, 2010) by experts. Wind energy cannot be harnessed as a “resource” before a “wind farm site” has been constructed (Nadaï and Labussière, 2018; Nadaï and Coïnte, 2020; Kirkegaard and Nyborg, 2021; Wade and Ellis, 2022). That is, to turn the wind into an investable “resource”, a “site” must first be assembled.…”

“…On the one hand, developers make their judgement as to whether a wind farm project is economically viable or not by calculating the potential return on investment (ROI) based on the expected energy production from the wind, using specific types of wind turbines, that would be placed on a specific piece of land. Ultimately, if they succeed in mobilizing all these material entities, then the land is turned into a ‘site’ for wind energy production (Kirkegaard and Nyborg, 2021; Sellwood and Valdivia, 2018; Nadaï and Cointe, 2020) whereby a market assemblage can be mobilized (Karnøe et al, 2022; Kirkegaard et al, 2020). On the other hand, competing land uses, place-related conflicts and planning regulations serve to constrain the utilisation of wind energy regardless of the measurable wind resource (e.g.…”

“…These devices are being used constantly as developers try to put together a feasible wind farm project. Firstly , wind resource maps, such as the European Wind Atlas 1 , help to direct wind farm developers to areas of good wind potential (Kirkegaard and Nyborg, 2021), as different sites can be thought of as having energy reserves “and their energy potential most often quantified” (Nadaï and Labussière, 2018: 57). This quantification of the energy potential is essential for wind farm developers to be able to collect a portfolio of promising sites.…”

“…Labussière and Nadaï, 2018a; Siamanta and Dunlap, 2019; Alonso Serna, 2022; Wade and Ellis, 2022). Inspired by work that has examined how land (Li, 2014; Christophers, 2016; Le Billon and Sommerville, 2017) and wind (Nadaï and Labussiere, 2018a, 2018b; Kirkegaard and Nyborg, 2021) are assembled as investable resources, we reveal the socio-material work underlying the transformation of land into an asset, that is, a revenue-generating resource with recurring earnings (Birch, 2017, 2020; Nadaï and Coïnte, 2020). We show how these processes have meant that the negotiations over land are kept confidential, often accompanied by the exclusion of local communities, non-experts and non-land owning neighbours.…”