Governance of Energy Infrastructures: Comparing Planning Cultures in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Germany

The transition to 100% renewable energy requires the development of new technical infrastructures. In the light of this challenge, the governance of energy infrastructures becomes a pivotal issue, and the paper discusses how conflicts in the planning and implementation process can be resolved more effectively. It describes different approaches to communicative governance and planning in three European countries, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, and outlines the specific characteristics and outlines the advantages and disadvantages of each. A comparative analysis of these three approaches reveals a strong correlation between the governance of energy infrastructure and national planning cultures. This encompasses both visible artefacts of energy planning and the planning and social environment, which includes traditions, path dependencies and current challenges. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential contributions of the convergence of planning systems in Europe to enhanced governance of energy infrastructure, along with a consideration of the limitations that must be taken into account. It is recommended that future research address the following open questions regarding the governance of energy infrastructure: firstly, the zero option in decision-making; secondly, the binding effect of early conflict resolution in the subsequent planning process; and thirdly, the neutrality of the organisation responsible for public participation.