Renewable Energy in the Post-Soviet Space: from late-Soviet heritage to enabler of decentralization and of new entanglements

• Applicant: Dr. Benjamin Beuerle
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 543294515

The sub-project builds on research into the late Soviet programme for the development and use of renewable energy (RE). It examines the extent to which the results of this programme were used or neglected in various post-Soviet states (Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Russia) after 1991, what debates took place in this regard, how RE policies have developed since then, what prospects there are for further expansion and what ecological, social, economic and (geo)political implications are associated with this. The motives, perceptions and assessments of the actors, important milestones and turning points as well as connections between the developments in the countries analysed are also examined throughout. Last but not least, the sub-project deals with the importance of renewable energy as a potential decentralised energy source and as a factor of disentanglement in a post-imperial context - as well as a moment of new or intensified entanglements both between post-Soviet states and between them and the states of the European Union.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 5856: Energy Entanglements. Actors, Spaces and Narratives in Eastern Europe