The inter- and transdisciplinary research project SmartArea aims to contribute to analysing the tension between the expansion of renewable energies and the scarcity of land and to highlight the complex economic, technical and social interactions between the diverse competing land uses of the energy transition, which are based on spatially and temporally specific actor constellations.

The fact that the energy transition is not only a technological but also a social transformation process has already been addressed in numerous projects and publications. It has been shown that resistance to or support for the energy transition depends on local contexts that are created by the relevant local actors. Some socio-ecological research projects have succeeded in identifying important acceptance factors and feeding these into the spatial modelling of the expansion of renewable energies. The consortium of the Ingolstadt University of Applied Sciences (THI) and the University of Augsburg (UNIA) intends to build on this basis and on existing data infrastructures (WebGIS applications, digital energy atlases, etc.). Our central thesis is that an expansion concept based solely on the cumulative intersection of techno-economic and socio-ecological parameters underestimates the importance of communication processes between the individual positions of key actors and thus overlooks opportunities to minimise conflict. Our project therefore aims to record, analyse and reflect on the specific perspectives of certain stakeholders on the expansion of renewable energies, which can be described as the ‘lens of the actors’. The results are to be visualised using geographic information systems (GIS) in such a way that they can be understood by all stakeholders and allow a constructive and consensus-oriented exchange on land management. On the one hand, we want to make the respective actors aware of the consequences of their own position on the entire energy system by aligning the modelling with their techno-economic and socio-ecological preferences. On the other hand, the aim is to make the opposing positions understandable to the actors and to create empathy by comparing and contrasting all positions in the form of spatial expansion concepts. The SmartArea research project aims to develop this using the example of two study regions (LS: Lusatia-Spreewald - Brandenburg; IN: Ingolstadt planning region - Bavaria) with different natural, socio-political and energy industry characteristics.

In a first step, the specific positions of the key stakeholders in the energy transition in each of the regions will be recorded (expert interviews, document analysis, regional plans) and processed in the form of spatial modelling on the regional expansion of renewable energies. The individual positions are reflected in the respective stakeholder-related value of a specific location. Favourable and unfavourable locations cannot be generalised from the outset, but are linked to the interests, values and norms of the local stakeholders (e.g. cost minimisation, sustainability, space efficiency, landscape aesthetics) and must first be understood in this differentiation. In a second step, the sometimes competing positions of the other stakeholders are presented to the stakeholders in workshops. We assume that this transparency will initiate a constructive communication process between the individual positions, which will help to identify the central or overly weighted parameters and minimise future conflicts of objectives. The results of these workshops are incorporated into the development of methods, the formulation of generally applicable statements on the regional expansion of renewable energies (method handbook) and an innovative and application-orientated GIS planning tool. The latter will be presented to regional stakeholders specifically in the context of results workshops.

selected publications:

• Tutunaru, R., Bosch, S., & Greßhake, L. (2023). Ein Konzept für eine GIS-gestützte Visualisierung der spezifischen Anforderungen von regionalen Akteuren der Energiewende an die Landnutzung. AGIT - Journal für Angewandte Geoinformatik, 9(2023), 44–49.  doi.org/10.14627/537742005