Abstract
Municipalities play a crucial role in the transition to renewable energy technology, specifically wind energy. They are responsible for implementing state directives and adapting them to local conditions. In carrying out these tasks, municipal administrators must address the concerns of local citizens, which, regarding the expansion of wind energy, often involve issues of justice, such as the unequal distribution of benefits and burdens (Carley and Konisky, 2020; LaBelle, 2017; Jenkins et al., 2016; Groth and Vogt, 2014). Deeply intertwined with these questions of justice are issues of local acceptance for wind energy projects. For example, Brouwer et al. (2025) explore the difficulties commercial developers encounter when attempting to build local trust for onshore wind projects in the Netherlands. Their findings highlight that residents frequently view these developers as profit-driven outsiders with little regard for community well-being. Importantly, the authors emphasize that offering community benefits, in an effort to balance the benefits and burdens, does not necessarily ensure public acceptance—when engagement is poorly managed or benefits are perceived as misaligned with local needs, such efforts can actually reinforce negative attitudes toward wind energy initiatives (Brouwer et al., 2025, p. 2). Similarly, Kerker et al. (2024, p. 9) note that financial compensation can create tensions between those who receive payments and those who do not, reinforcing perceptions of an unjust distribution of wind energy’s benefits and burdens. As Saglie et al. (2020, p. 148) point out, municipalities are caught in the middle of these dynamics and play a crucial role in shaping acceptance through inclusive processes and fair distribution of benefits. While they are often briefly mentioned as partners in wind energy projects, municipalities’ potential contribution to local energy justice is frequently overlooked, in part because they are commonly subsumed under the ambiguous and underdefined umbrella of “energy communities” (see e.g. Bauwens et al., 2022; Baxter et al., 2020). Energy justice research mainly focuses on cooperatives and other civic energy projects, as their “characteristics include the involvement of the wider public (enabling the direct participation and ownership of members), the pursuit of non-commercial benefits (such as the fostering of community spirit) and the motivation to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy systems (e.g., phasing out nuclear power, regaining local ownership and control of energy provision)” (Wierling et al., 2018). However, Yildiz et al. (2015, p. 64) find that a significant majority of energy cooperative members are male, highly educated and high-income individuals and as such are fairly exclusive. In contrast, local governments are meant to represent all citizens. “Representative democracy,” Palm et al. (2025, p. 6) write “also provides a more stable and long-term approach to energy planning”. While citizen-led initiatives are sometimes more focused on short-term goals or have limited resources to maintain sustainable engagement, municipally owned energy utilities (MEUs) aim to ensure “that energy projects can be planned and implemented over decades, thus providing consistency and reliability in energy transition efforts” (ibid.).
Against this background, this paper addresses the following research problem: despite the importance of municipalities in renewable energy governance, little is known about how municipal ownership of land, infrastructure, and energy assets affects questions of energy justice at the local level. Specifically, how does municipal ownership shape the distribution of benefits and burdens, decision-making power, and access to participation in the expansion of wind energy?