WINDREG - Offshore wind and regional futures: challenges and opportunities for energy justice in regional transitions

The WINDREG project has made good progress and dissemination to user groups since its start on 1 October 2023. Two on-line kick-off meetings were held in November 2023 and a website has been established for the project windreg.uia.no. In January 2024, a physical start-up seminar was held for all project participants, including partner group and steering group, with presentations from both researchers and project partners. In April, the project employed a Ph.D. research fellow directly linked to WINDREG. In May, we employed another Ph.D. fellow funded by strategic funds at UiA but linked to WINDREG. Furthermore, we have just been awarded a strategic post doc also from strategic funds at UiA. The post doc will write a project on topics related to WindReg and support the development of the professional environment around offshore wind at the institute. The project has so far collected many different forms of empirical evidence. We have been on learning case visits in the Agder region, conducted interviews and participated in several relevant events, both as listeners and speakers. Most recently, we participated in the Arendal Week with a session on offshore wind and regional development. There has generally been great interest in the project and we have given many lectures in both professional, scientific and teaching-based contexts. The project has also given rise to collaboration with other research projects in Norway and internationally (including application work) and is included in the teaching of several subjects at UiA. A study trip to the Haugesund region is planned for Otober 2024 with several meetings with regional actors linked to the offshore wind development of Utsira Nord. The trip to Grimsby had to be postponed because Ørsted withdrew from the project. The trip is now planned for spring 2025. Through our fieldwork, we see that offshore wind development is now manifesting tself in the regions of Agder and Haugalandet. The energy company Ventyr, which won the development of Sørlige Nordsjø II, has sent its first notification about the start of the license for NVE on Sørlige Nordsjø II and the associated grid connection to land. Through our fieldwork in Agder, we have seen how this opens up land controversies in affected municipalities when importing electricity ashore. The field work has also shown that there are three development understandings linked to offshore wind, especially in Agder and Haugesund: 1. Increased energy supply from land cables is seen as an important opportunity to establish and develop new (green) industry and industrial areas such as server centres, breeding facilities on land and hydrogen production. 2. Installation and maintenance of sea window development is linked to port development and complements (and partially replaces) oil and gas-related maintenance and port operations. 3. The development of offshore wind is linked to great opportunities for restructuring in the (oil and gas) supplier industry. Across these, it is pointed out that this development should happen quickly and that there is a need to announce new areas to ensure that industry and port investments have long-term predictability for further development. At the same time, our fieldwork also shows that many actors are concerned about the long-term legitimacy of offshore wind and that a lack of social acceptance can create barriers to further development. There is therefore a great deal of attention to ensure good and transparent processes and the involvement of the local population, as well as ensuring that the offshore wind development creates positive local ripple effects in the affected municipalities. In 2025, WindReg will undergo some changes in relation to case areas after offshore wind development has moved west to Rogaland. This is because Sørlige Nordsjø II was won by the energy company Ventyr with headquarters in Stavanger. In WindReg, we maintain our focus on the Agder region, but we also expand our focus and include the offshore wind development in Rogaland. Fieldwork in Rogaland in October 2024 is now being planned as well as community workshops and a study trip to Grimsby in spring 2025.

Off-shore wind (OW) development in the North Sea is increasingly positioned to tackle climate change, energy security, and stimulate economic growth. OW installations generate large opportunities and challenges for onshore regional development. Academic institutions, public authorities, and private stakeholders are collaborating to position Agder as the core OW region in Norway with several coastal sites and harbors for OW installations and industry services. There is an urgent need to understand how OW affects socio-environmental values and spatial planning, socio-economic development, and conditions for governance and integrated planning across several government levels and stakeholders. WINDREG explores the OW region of Agder and learns from exemplary international learning cases. The project questions: 1) what socio-environmental conflicts emerges, how they are mapped and how can countermapping increase recognitional justice, 2) what are key socio-economic challenges and opportunities in regional OW development and how can more challenge-oriented regional innovation systems support distributional justice, 3) What governance challenges emerge in OW regional transitions and how can municipal and regional modes of governance ensure procedural justice? And 4) How does multi-actor network develop and define policy guidelines and governance models for energy justice in regional OW transitions. WINDREG co-creates cross-disciplinary scientific knowledge (geography, law, planning, regional development) of an emerging new industrial venture in collaboration with a broad range of relevant stakeholders. Theoretically, it contributes to develop and operationalize energy justice in regional transitions, and to connect energy justice to challenge-oriented regional innovation systems. The project develops policy recommendations for improved policy, planning and governance measures for energy justice in regional transitions.