Rural resilience and renewable energy in North-East Groningen, the Netherlands: in search of synergies

Using renewable energy (RE) for solving area-based socio-economic issues and by extension making peripheral, rural places more resilient is increasingly signaled in academic literature. Furthermore, governance capacity surrounding RE production is also being increased by a growing number of local initiatives around RE visible in various countries, including the Netherlands. It remains unclear, however, whether formal governments are recognizing and anticipating on the socio-economic potentials of RE. In this chapter we explore the perceived role of RE in government policy and planning in the Netherlands in connection to supporting the resilience of rural regions in the face of rural decline and peripheralization. We focus on different governmental levels and the government as an institutional framework with official power and legitimacy to intervene in RE production. Our area of interest is the coastal and predominantly rural region of (North-East) Groningen. This area profiles itself as the ‘energy portal’ of the Netherlands while simultaneously dealing with a complex combination of opportunities and challenges related to both energy, as well as peripheralization and rural decline.