Recycling energy landscapes as Britain's coal plants close: What are the directions, drivers and justice implications of site re-use?

Global research interest in coal phase-out has focused mostly on the consequences for energy decarbonisation, to the relative neglect of the spaces affected by facility closure, with a particular research gap on the fate of coal-fired power station sites. Yet tracing processes of post-closure landscape recycling of these spaces can enhance our understanding of the dynamics and justice implications of energy transitions. This paper pursues these issues, applying assemblage thinking to examine what has happened to the sites of the Britain's last coal-fired power stations. It draws on media data, planning files and interviews, to analyse what these sites are becoming, which futures are being effaced, and how. Our assemblage approach revealed the differential power of alternative development trajectories: on some sites, hierarchical and closely-coupled market-policy relations produce powerful drivers for housing projects; for those envisioned as future energy centres, we observe struggles to construct coherence from the shifting, heterogeneous elements at work. Large-scale solar PV is an exception, with projects exploiting the grid connection but not the brownfield land. Elements of power station spaces that might constrain development trajectories – foregrounding existing heritage, ecological and social values – have been readily smoothed aside. Drawing on these findings, our assessment identifies a range of factors creating difficult real-world contexts for realising ‘place-based just transitions’: the protracted, uncertain processes of building future uses, the elite-level and fragmented decision-making processes, and the significant re-scaling of energy assemblages that facility closure can trigger. • 1st major analysis of how redundant UK coal power station sites have been recycled. • Uses assemblage theory to interpret ‘landscape recycling’ as processes of becoming • Powerful market-policy drivers push some sites to be redeveloped for housing. • Repurposing sites for new energy uses is more challenging and protracted. • Just transitions problematised by time frames, rescaling and fragmented decisions