The Energy and Society research group is a multidisciplinary team critically examining the ongoing energy transition to support the development of sustainable energy futures. The group investigates societal processes, challenges, and bottlenecks related to the energy system change through sociotechnical, socioeconomic and socioecological perspectives. With a strong sustainability orientation, the group explores both transformative changes and stabilizing forces in energy systems.
Current research topics include societal impacts of renewable energy systems and energy communities, multi-system interactions (energy, food, and mobility systems), regional modeling of trajectories in the energy sector and socio-ecological impacts tied to land use and land use change resulting from renewable energy expansion. The research group also engages in social justice and political economy research perspectives on studying energy projects and women energy entrepreneurship in global south, vulnerabilities of energy transition and the energy elite in global north.
The group combines qualitative and quantitative approaches and works across disciplines. It also teaches a Master’s level course on energy and society at the Department of Energy Technology.
Group members
Lotta Apajalahti
