Politics of Renewable Energy Transformations: Actors, Institutions, and Policy Challenges

Renewable energy transformations are not merely a shift of energy production technologies but rather processes that yield long-term structural and institutional changes. Energy production technologies are incorporated into larger social, economic and technological systems, i.e. these technologies are closely intertwined with values, decisions, behaviors, relationships, practices and institutions. This Section aims to run five Panels focusing on current issues in and approaches to governance challenges of renewable energy transformations. We call for Panels and Papers dealing with governance challenges of renewable energy transformations at or between supranational, transnational, national, regional, and local levels. The overarching aim of the Section is for all Panels to draw together conceptual expertise and rigorous empirical analysis in order to explore how actors, institutions and governance shape and are shaped by renewable energy technologies, which governance challenges evolve and which governance units at diverse scales are appropriate and/or the coordination of one or more levels of governance is needed in order to solve governance challenges. The following colleagues have expressed their interest in organizing a Panel within this Section: Panel: Renewable energy transformations and the EU (Chairs: Per Ove Eikeland, Fridtjof Nansen Institute (FNI), Norway, and Jon Birger Skjærseth, Fridtjof Nansen Institute (FNI), Norway) The Panel “Renewable energy transformations and the EU” invites Papers dealing with the role of the EU in renewable energy transformation processes. Topics might range from EU innovation policies in the context of renewable energy to the relationship between the EU and their member states at transnational, national, regional, or local level. Panel: Governance of national energy transformations compared (Chair: Michèle Knodt, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany, Co-Chair: Jörg Kemmerzell, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany) The Panel “Governance of national energy transformations compared” calls for Papers dealing with governance of energy transformations in national context. Against the background of both global and national challenges like climate change or energy security, sustainable energy transformations are on the agenda of many countries. Beyond all differences in terms of definition of sustainable energy supply as well as targets and scopes of energy transformations as well as in terms of institutional and economic context, the challenges of energy transformation governance are quite similar. The aim of the Panel is to compare processes of energy transformations in different national contexts in order to discuss various modes of energy transformation governance and to reveal driving forces and constraints. Therefore, we invite case studies as well as comparative contributions on the topic. Panel: Bottom-up and top-down resistance to energy transitions (Chair: Christoph Stefes, University of Colorado Denver, USA) The Panel ”Bottom-up and top-down resistance to energy transitions” invites Papers that compare either grassroots resistance/political elite campaigns in different countries or compare bottom-up and top-down campaigns in a single country, how they differ and how they reinforce each other. The idea behind this Panel is to map the political landscape (actors, institutions, and interests) of actors that actively try to halt or even roll back the transition towards sustainable energy systems. Panel: Political economy of renewable energy transformations (Chair: Cornelia Fraune, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany) The Panel “Political economy of renewable energy transformations” invites Papers dealing with governance challenges evolving from the social re-distribution of power and resources in the context of renewable energy transformation processes and how these challenges might be tackled. Topics might be fuel poverty, the social distribution of transformation costs, or sustainable transformations and gender equality.