Co-creation and ownership model innovation: An investigation of local actor participation in wind energy transitions

Co-creation has received much attention and praise for its potential to reach robust solutions to complex problems and challenges. Despite its popularity in other fields of study, co-creation is only starting to find its way into research on wind energy development and transitions more generally. Currently the literature on co-creation in wind energy transitions has a loose theoretical base, and various colloquial uses of the phrase are widespread. As a result of disparate descriptions of the processes of co-creation, the potential for local actors in co-creation is often unclear, posing challenges for theory and practice. Therefore, this thesis seeks to explore what co-creation means and does for wind energy transitions in research and practice with a focus on the possibilities for local actors to co-create wind power projects.

The aims of the thesis are threefold. First, it collates and synthesises the different understandings of co-creation found in the literature on wind energy by conducting a systematic literature review. It thereby increases the conceptual clarity by distinguishing three different perspectives on co-creation and discussing how it differs from the literature on participation. It does this particularly by seeing participating actors as active and creative, and by empirically focusing on the governance of particular projects alongside innovation in socio-technical systems, identities and representations. Second, the thesis investigates empirically a specific case of co-creation in wind energy transitions to demonstrate how local actors forge relations to position themselves as co-creators. It argues that to become co-creators of the project, and more specifically its shared ownership model, local actors need to become a new actor. The thesis demonstrates how this shift has consequences for how local actors can shape a project, as well as in creating tensions among the actors involved and with other participatory mechanisms. Third, the thesis investigates how a landowner, local opponents and supporters all try to position themselves as the most local of actors in order to ensure their inclusion in the co-creation of the solution to a contentions wind power project. I demonstrate how they construct narratives of epic change, tragic degradation and historical continuity by drawing on different pasts, presents and futures and thereby positioning themselves to promote their own preferred solutions.

The thesis employs qualitative methods throughout, the aim being to acquire an in-depth understanding of a concept and phenomenon that is currently only loosely conceptualised and empirically investigated in the context of wind energy transitions. The thesis includes a systematic literature review and two in-depth empirical case studies employing situational analysis and narrative analytical strategies respectively. The findings of the thesis demonstrate that there are distinct differences between co-creation and participation in terms of the rights and possibilities for participating, of what can be influenced in co-creation and of more procedural approaches to participation. Furthermore, the thesis demonstrates that wind power projects are situated, ongoing cumulative processes that go beyond the immediate present of the development of a particular project by drawing on and co-producing different pasts, presents and futures together with other conditions and the technical configuration of the wind power project itself.