Paper long abstract:

In the past decade, much like other European countries, Portugal has experienced an outstanding development in renewable energy production. The ambitious target of 45% of electricity from renewable energy sources by 2010 was met and the percentage of renewable energies in total consumption is already 25% (the goal for 2020 is 31%), which places Portugal in the sixth place in the ranking of the 27 European Union member states (Eurostat, 2011).

This growth of renewable energies is mainly due to the sharp increase of wind energy: the weight of wind power in RE has risen from 3% in 2003 to 42% in 2013. This development can be attributed mainly to political measures, in particular generous feed-in tariff schemes, and the uptake by large electricity firms.

This presentation aims to understand how the political support (but also opposition) to renewable energy has been framed. Who are the actors involved in the debate? Which are the arguments used to justify policy measures (economic, environmental, climate related)? Which are the sectors and activities (energy generation, R&D, manufacture of equipment) that benefit from these measures (and which are left behind) and how is that vindicated? How are energy technologies portrayed in political discourse?

This presentation is supported by interviews and a qualitative analysis of document sources: legislation, policy documents, speeches in Parliament, news articles. The research is based on a project intituled "Sociotechnical consensus and controversies on renewable energy", funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (PTDC/CS-ECS/118877/2010).