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Tackling grand challenges in wind energy through a socio-technical perspective

Nature Energy volume 8, pages 655–664 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Wind power has an important role to play in tackling climate change. Key challenges in wind energy science and innovation must be overcome to increase the penetration and capability of this technology. However, the success of these efforts heavily depends on how society engages with the development of wind power infrastructure. Consequently, grand challenges exist in both technical and social domains, yet little research has made substantial efforts in connecting them. Here we review the social science and humanities literature on wind energy to illustrate the social dimensions of previously identified technical challenges. We suggest that a socio-technical lens enables an interdisciplinary approach to overcome the prevalent tendency of silo thinking in wind energy research and use it to explore socio-technical grand challenges related to the design, planning, development, operational and end-of-life phases of wind energy. Finally, we provide an outlook for research, practice and innovation, including an interdisciplinary and socio-technical research agenda for wind energy science, renewable energy developments and science policy in general.

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Fig. 1: Socio-technical research gaps in the full life cycle of wind power.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Firestone and S. Mills for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. In addition, we want to thank E. Liang, graphic designer, for her help with the visualisation of our ideas and the design of the figure.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Wind and Energy Systems, DTU (Technical University of Denmark), Roskilde, Denmark

    Julia Kirch Kirkegaard, David Philipp Rudolph, Sophie Nyborg & Tom Cronin

  2. Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Helena Solman

  3. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO, USA

    Elizabeth Gill & Mary Hallisey

  4. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Mary Hallisey

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Correspondence to Julia Kirch Kirkegaard.

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Kirkegaard, J.K., Rudolph, D.P., Nyborg, S. et al. Tackling grand challenges in wind energy through a socio-technical perspective. Nat Energy 8, 655–664 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01266-z

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