Who influences windpower licensing decisions in Norway? Formal requirements and informal practices

Inderberg, Tor Håkon Jackson; Rognstad, Helga; Saglie, Inger-Lise; Gulbrandsen, Lars H.

doi:10.1016/j.erss.2019.02.004

Cited by 41 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Related to its international climate change mitigation commitments, the Norwegian government is facilitating an expansion in large-scale wind power projects in multiple sites across the country. Even if this development progressed slower than in other European countries, related to the vast hydropower resources in the country (Inderberg, Rognstad, Saglie, & Gulbrandsen, 2019), currently, a shift from a history where policies aimed for state control and national sovereignty (Christiansen, 2002) toward a more volatile situation where transnational capital and global interests set the agenda has been observed. The field is currently moving quickly.…”

Section: Wind Power In Norwaymentioning

confidence: 99%

Green colonialism in the Nordic context: Exploring Southern Saami representations of wind energy development

Normann

2020

Journal Community Psychology

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This paper explores social representations of wind energy development within reindeer herding lands among the Indigenous Southern Saami living within Norwegian borders. For this matter, the paper combines Social Representations Theory (SRT) with the analytical framework of "circuits of dispossession and privilege" and decolonial approaches within community psychology. Data consisted of seven individual semi-structured openended interviews, three collective interviews, and observation in three lawsuits, public meetings, protest actions, and reindeer herding activities. The findings suggest that for the subjects in this study, the onset of wind power represents the renewal of historical processes of dispossession through accumulation and colonialism, enabled by harmful knowledge gaps in Norwegian society and institutions, contrasting Southern Saami's values of responsibility and ecological practices. The implication of these findings suggests an urgent need of rethinking renewable energy and including indigenous knowledge in climate change agendas.

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Section: Wind Power In Norwaymentioning

confidence: 99%

Green colonialism in the Nordic context: Exploring Southern Saami representations of wind energy development

Normann

2020

Journal Community Psychology

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“…Norwegian municipalities are expected to play a number of roles: as a democratic arenaa commons tasked with a formal role to represent the views of the local inhabitants in the licensing process, but they also have an important entrepreneurial role in ensuring a viable economic base for the local population (Inderberg et al 2019). Moreover, they are important providers of crucial welfare benefits for their residentsprimary schools, kindergartens, primary health services and care of elderly, as well as local technical and cultural services.…”

Section: Municipalities and Energy Production In Norwaymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One might expect this loss of competence to undermine the municipalities' sense of procedural fairness, making them less favourable to hosting windpower installations. However, research has shown (see Inderberg et al 2019) that Norwegian municipalities have, at least up recently, had a sort of informal veto power in windpower licensing processes. High value is attached to local self-government, in the government's document on future energy policy (OED 2016, 193) as well as in public administration more generally (Public Administration Act §34).…”

Section: Municipalities and Energy Production In Norwaymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, in practice, the number of pro-windpower municipalities has been sufficient to enable the projects necessary to meet national political goals concerning wind power, as can be seen from the number of realised projects. Regardless, this informal veto practice is an element that is dependent on the affected actors being aware of thiswhich has not always been the case (Inderberg et al, 2019).…”

Section: Municipalities and Energy Production In Norwaymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The municipality is an important albeit neglected study object in relation to windpower siting and acceptance (Inderberg et al 2019;Fournis and Fortin 2017;Lindén, Rapeli, and Brutemark 2015). Significant emphasis has been directed to how "local communities" view and potentially oppose wind power projects (Wolsink 2007a(Wolsink , 2007bDevine-Wright 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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What shapes municipalities’ perceptions of fairness in windpower developments?

2020

Self Cite

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Siting controversies have become familiar in windpower development. Process and outcome fairness in the form of economic benefits to local communities and inclusion in decision-making processes are recognised as important elements in local acceptance of windpower installations. To these, we add the concept of "relative fairness" influencing perceptions of overall fairness. In this article, we examine why Norwegian municipalities agree to host windpower, and the role of process, outcome and relative fairness in this decision. Municipalities are central in providing welfare services, and in ensuring a viable local economy and local workplaces. Process fairness is important, as is evident when municipalities have little influence in the detailed planning of the plants. Also, outcome fairness, in the form of economic compensationparticularly through property taxis decisive for positive attitudes towards windfarms, as municipalities can strengthen their role as welfare providers and boost local economic activities. Less emphasised are the effects on global climate and national climate goals. However, effects on local landscape and nature are also important for municipalities, as became clear when the national government proposed withdrawing the municipalities' possibilities of levying property taxes. The municipalities argue that it is only fair to receive something in return for hosting windmills, and relative fairness is important to their argument for equal treatment regarding hydro-and wind-power electricity production in the form of a natural resource tax.

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Machine learning of public sentiments towards wind energy in Norway

Vågerö,

Bråte,

Wittemann

et al. 2024

Wind Energy

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Across Europe, negative public opinion has and may continue to limit the deployment of renewable energy infrastructure required for the transition to net‐zero energy systems. Understanding public sentiment and its spatio‐temporal variations is as such important for decision‐making and for developing socially accepted energy systems. In this study, we apply a sentiment classification model based on a machine learning framework for natural language processing, NorBERT, on data collected from Twitter between 2006 and 2022 to analyse the case of wind power opposition in Norway. From the 68,828 tweets with geospatial information, we show how discussions about wind power intensified in 2018/2019 together with a trend of more negative tweets up until 2020, both on a regional level and for Norway as a whole. Furthermore, we find weak geographical clustering in our data, indicating that discussions are country wide and not dominated by specific regional events or developments. Twitter data allow for detailed insight into the temporal nature of public sentiments and extending this research to additional case studies of technologies, countries and sources of data (e.g. newspapers, other social media) may prove important to complement traditional survey research and the understanding of public sentiment.

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Who influences windpower licensing decisions in Norway? Formal requirements and informal practices

Cited by 41 publications

References 16 publications

Green colonialism in the Nordic context: Exploring Southern Saami representations of wind energy development

Green colonialism in the Nordic context: Exploring Southern Saami representations of wind energy development

What shapes municipalities’ perceptions of fairness in windpower developments?

Machine learning of public sentiments towards wind energy in Norway

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