The co-creation of worth, calculative devices and calculative agencies in the Danish wind power market

Wind power generated electricity offers a unique vantage point on the nature of markets and the specific organizing processes by which markets become constructed, configured, and contested. Modern Wind power generated electricity emerged in Denmark after the first oil supply crisis in 1974 when various entrepreneurial actors responded to that situation and saw wind power as one possible solution to ‘the’ problem. Today wind power is globally the fastest growing energy technology and supplies significant amounts of energy in countries like Denmark and Germany, in Denmark wind power generated electricity supplies 20% of annual electricity consumption. Although the trajectory of wind power institutionally and materially is much more robust today than 25 years ago very few thought that this technology had such a future. In the context of the 1970s with modernization and emerging nuclear power, many evaluated wind power as a relic from the past, some imagined opportunities (doomed as unrealistic), but nobody imagined that wind power should become one of the important ‘weapons’ against the CO2-related climate change at the turn of the century. However, confronted with emergent technologies outside the existing evaluative frames and institutionalised categories, it is not about being right or wrong from an objective epistemology, but about what epistemologies are used to frame the potential worth of a potential new energy technology

Introducing the lens of markets-in-the-making to transition studies:The case of the Danish wind power market agencement

This paper contributes to a renewed understanding of markets in transition studies by focusing on how unknown things must be ‘framed’ and pacified in order to be attributed some ‘value’ that makes them ‘matter’. We empirically analyze the making of a market agencement for wind power deployment in Denmark. Using an analytical framework of framing and pacifying, we trace three entangled ‘domains of action’ associated with the employment of (a) sociopolitical devices to enable the discursive valuation of wind power, (b) economic devices to develop price-setting models for investors, and (c) technical devices to facilitate grid integration, thereby framing wind power as socio-politically, economically, and techno-scientifically ‘valuable’, respectively. This market agencement has consistently produced concerns (i.e., overflows) requiring constant re-framing. We discuss how the lens of markets-in-the-making can contribute to transition studies. By showing how the domains of action entangle and ‘overflow’ onto each other, this study demonstrates that the relational lens of socio-technical agencements can help shed additional light on the dynamics and agency of markets in transition.</p

Simulation versus Optimisation:Theoretical Positions in Energy System Modelling

In recent years, several tools and models have been developed and used for the design and analysis of future national energy systems. Many of these models focus on the integration of various renewable energy resources and the transformation of existing fossil-based energy systems into future sustainable energy systems. The models are diverse and often end up with different results and recommendations. This paper analyses this diversity of models and their implicit or explicit theoretical backgrounds. In particular, two archetypes are defined and compared. On the one hand, the prescriptive investment optimisation or optimal solutions approach. On the other hand the analytical simulation or alternatives assessment approach. Awareness of the dissimilar theoretical assumption behind the models clarifies differences between the models, explains dissimilarities in results, and provides a theoretical and methodological foundation for understanding and interpreting results from the two archetypes