LUCSUS seminar: “We can’t just sit here and wait” - saving Gotland’s energy transition in times of disrupted policy directionality

Henner Busch, Associate Professor, LUCSUS.

The Swedish island of Gotland was long seen as the frontrunner of the country's renewable energy transition. Recently, international and national developments have led to a state of policy turbulence endangering the island’s energy transition. In particular, policy direction has changed repeatedly since 2017. The development is defined by three events: the lack of transmission grid connection to the mainland, the cancellation of the “energy pilot” project and lastly, the cancellation of several large-scale offshore wind projects after a veto by the Swedish defence forces in response to the Russian threat. We investigate how the work of key actors (politicians, planners and intermediaries) is affected by disruptions in directionality, and how it affects the energy transition on the island. We collected data through interviews, field visits, observations and desk research. We find that repeated changes were highly disruptive to Gotland’s energy transition. Nevertheless, we find no indication of surrender but rather a sense of defiance amongst the interviewees. This renders the transition surprisingly resilient. Nevertheless, several informants indicated that they chose to wait instead of initiating new planning processes until the political climate had changed.