The area embraces three connected areas of work. (i) Research on Local Area Energy Plans in Wales is unearthing the real-world challenges of developing strategies that can align multiple actors. (ii) Analysis of the end-of-life outcomes for decommissioned wind farms is exposing the practical challenges of interfacing the construction of circular economies for materials, with place-based environmental regulation. (iii) Analysis of the difficult legacy effects of previous fossil fuel spaces on innovative energy system projects is being advanced by injecting closer attention to infrastructural development struggles into our understanding of socio-technical energy system change.

Frontier research

This research qualifies as ‘frontier research’, because it responds to clear deficits in our empirical, theoretical and policy-relevant knowledge of energy transition, as follows. Many nations are moving towards a second, more difficult phase of energy decarbonisation where initial emphasis simply on growing renewable electricity generation needs to be expanded to become a cross-vector decarbonisation of energy, transport and heat. To respond, researchers need to adjust and expand their focus to engage effectively with these more complex, multi-factoral challenges, which entails interfacing social science and technical expertise in novel ways. At the same time, there is a need for research that moves beyond the laboratory, or abstract analyses of ‘technical potential’ and ‘economic optimality’, to engage critically with the challenges of building new energy systems on the ground. This means dealing seriously with issues of land use conflict, environmental regulation and place change, as key elements in change dynamics, with consequences that ramify into policy and political domains. These are also the arenas in which aspirations for ‘just transitions’ need to be made meaningful.