Who's Right, Who's Wrong? Questioning Opposition to Energy Transition in Greece

• In Event: Engagement in Environmental Issues

Abstract

The energy transition has given rise to a number of socio-technical analyses aimed at formulating proposals for overcoming growing local opposition to renewable energy projects (RES). These studies focus on the success of the energy transition and tend to discredit the reactions emerging within society, seen as major obstacles on the road to a low-carbon economy. In this respect, the main objective of the researchers is to develop various participatory techniques to improve social acceptance. While we acknowledge the necessity of the energy transition, our approach is to see opposition to RES as manifestations of power relations and domination, highlighting dysfunctions in the exercise of power and in relations between the State and civil society.
In Greece, the energy transition officially began in 2019 but the number of renewable energy projects has steadily increased since the 2000s. For a decade, local communities were relatively receptive to new energy infrastructures. However, the European Union's energy and climate policy led to a significant acceleration in the number of new installations (notably wind farms) and since, for the first time in the energy sector, the formation of opposition groups to renewable energy infrastructures has become widespread and reinforced with the aid of new technologies.
We have studied two Greek islands of equivalent size that have experienced strong social opposition despite the fact that they face two very different challenges: the island of Skyros, where residents are fighting against the realization of Europe's largest wind power project, with a total capacity of 333 MW and the island of Tinos, where residents have mobilized against a small 3-turbine wind farm with a total capacity of 1.8 MW. While the reaction of the inhabitants of Tinos may be perceived as eminently NIMBYist compared to that of Skyros, the field study reveals several shared motivations for mobilizing against new energy infrastructures: distrust of the political class, due to the persistence of clientelist practices that turn energy into a medium for exchanging concessions; contestation of the centralized decision-making process; condemnation of haphazard land use planning; prioritization of the effective protection of cultural and natural heritage over the economic profit of the energy industry, which has imposed an industrial-scale model for the development of RES infrastructures.
This study leads us to consider that the most important factors hindering the energy transition are the weaknesses inherent in the exercise of power and political decision-making, which fuel the reactions of local populations to the new energy landscape, rather than the reactions themselves.

Author

• Chloe Vlassopoulos, University of Picardie Jules Verne