New Innovation Fund Project
Associate Professor Beatriz Martinez Romera will be part of a new research project co-financed by the Innovation Fund.
The project with the full title 'The Danish Model for Citizen Engagement in the Renewable Energy Transition' (DART) is co-financed by the Innovation Fund's Grand Solutions program with DKK 7.5 million. The researchers in the project will develop a new model for how companies and authorities best involve citizens and local communities when they are faced with having to build large facilities for the production of green energy. Based on other studies, the researchers estimate that local resistance today puts an end to 10-15 percent of all projects within the green energy sector. The model that the researchers will develop can, among other things, become relevant for the upcoming multibillion-dollar investments in the expansion of renewable energy and the construction of so-called 'power-to-x plants' in Denmark.
The DART project is led by associate professor Simon Westergaard Lex from the Department of Anthropology in collaboration with associate professor Kasper Tang Vangkilde and professor Lars Tønder , Department of Political Science, and Beatriz Martinez Romera from the Faculty of Law. The project also involves external partners from a number of companies that work with power-to-x or other green energy projects: Høst based in Esbjerg, Fjord in Aalborg and the European Energy . In addition, Behave Green, the Danish Center for Energy Storage, the Danish Fire and Safety Institute and the Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping are also taking part.
The project runs from 2023 to 2026 and is an extension of an already initiated project in the national MissionGreenFuel partnership on the involvement of local communities in the energy field.