Evidence Infrastructures and the Governance of Uncertainty in Renewable Energy Deployment

Abstract

Renewable energy transitions are frequently presented as engineering and investment challenges, yet many deployment bottlenecks arise from social processes that determine whether projects are perceived as legitimate, enforceable, and adaptable over time. As build-out accelerates, authorities face recurring conflicts over siting, cumulative impacts, benefit distribution, and the credibility of monitoring and mitigation. These conflicts are intensified by nonstationary conditions, including climate hazards, shifting ecological baselines, and changing grid operating regimes, which make long-horizon promises difficult to interpret and difficult to enforce. This paper develops a social science framework for governing uncertainty in renewable deployment. The core contribution is an account of “evidence infrastructures” as the institutional arrangements that transform measurements, models, and stakeholder claims into actionable decisions and durable accountability, and of how these infrastructures shape public trust and policy stability. The framework emphasizes three coupled problems: the politics of what counts as evidence, the delegation of evidentiary work to intermediaries with uneven incentives, and the negotiation of policy meaning across fragmented arenas of authority. Rather than treating uncertainty as an obstacle to be minimized, the paper treats uncertainty as a governance object that can be managed through explicit responsibilities, traceable reasons for change, and structured dispute pathways. The analysis connects legitimacy to the everyday mechanics of monitoring, reporting, interpretation, and revision, showing how procedural compliance can coexist with persistent mistrust when evidence production is opaque or weakly accountable. The paper concludes with design implications for institutions seeking faster deployment without sacrificing fairness, learning, and long-run consent.