Panacea (medicine)

Context (archaeology)

Agriculture

Engineering

Philosophy

Sustainable energy

Energy development

Environmental economics

Archaeology

Economics

Energy policy

Business

Conflation

Environmental planning

Alternative medicine

Energy transition

Renewable energy

Geography

Political science

Epistemology

Sustainable development

Environmental science

Medicine

Economic growth

Rural development

Natural resource economics

Electrical engineering

Rural area

Pathology

Energy Policy

Energy transition is increasingly regarded as a promising opportunity for the economic development of rural areas. This possibility is associated with the siting and (co-)ownership of decentralized (small-scale) renewable energy facilities. The underlying productive link, however, has been taken for granted, rather than conceptually and practically cultivated. Thus, while renewable energy-based rural development has been stated as a desired by-product of energy transitions, its potential has remained largely unfulfilled. This review aims to illuminate the ambiguous interplay between renewable energy and rural development in the context of the current trajectories of the energy transition. In doing so, we first examine different ways renewable energy may contribute to rural development and explore how the synergetic conflation of renewable energy and rural development has played out in Denmark and Scotland, as two countries that have forged ahead with renewable energy in rural areas. Second, we draw on the different experiences in the two countries to critically discuss policy-related mismatches that hamper a more efficient contribution of renewable energy to rural development, and sketch out some thoughts about the need to bring rural matters and rural communities into the discussion if the synergies between energy transition and rural development are to be taken seriously.

Renewable energy for sustainable rural development: Synergies and mismatches