Winds of change: Legitimacy, withdrawal, and interdependency from a decentralized wind-to-hydrogen regime in Orkney, Scotland

Abstract

Community-owned renewable energy facilities support decentralized low-carbon energy and community development by empowering local political organizations; however, the consequences of community empowerment on local politics are not always anticipated or, in some cases, desired. While there is no shortage of research on the factors for or barriers against energy project outcomes, community renewable energy research lacks engagement with such projects’ effects on local governance post-implementation. ‘Community benefit’ is not a natural product of renewable energy technology implementation, but of accompanying complex socio-political processes, organizations, and arrangements. Drawing from governance perspectives and field research, this ethnographic study describes governance implications associated with a shift to a community wind and hydrogen energy facility on the island of Shapinsay, Scotland. Specifically, it pulls from local perspectives to illuminate pathways in which a particular community renewable energy political group considerably reshaped local power relations. The findings indicate that wind energy income and hydrogen production control created new political opportunities that have transformed governance on the island in novel ways: community legitimacy, state withdrawal, and private interdependence. The study concludes by applying these empirical insights to community renewable energy policy recommendations.