Refocusing on the connection between renewable energy, community, and territory. Reflections from Sardinia, a land in revolt

Abstract

Beginning with the premise that research on energy sources alternative to fossil-based, accompanied by a consumption-reducing policy, is an objective to be vigorously pursued, the article intends to critically analyse the direction this transitional phase is following. By highlighting that the methods implemented follow that same technocratic worldview – based on man’s separation from nature and on a finalistic, instrumental rationality underpinning the ecological crisis we are going through – it aims to press for a change in paradigm. A paradigm change that is becoming increasingly urgent and necessary due to the conflicts emerging on various territories. In taking Sardinia as an emblematic case, where a rebellion is underway against the installation by large multinationals of high-powered wind and solar power plants, which have been dropped in the island's context by the sprinkling of power, we want to contribute to taking another road. One made possible by another instrument introduced by legislation: the energy community. The idea is that through this particular mechanism, the energy production issue may revert to being considered not an element disconnected from the context but rather an inseparable, integral part of that complex network of relations that links a community with the care of its living environment and landscape production.