Articulated Expertise Assembling Energy Transition: The Case of Biogas

In recent years, Denmark has seen a rapid growth in the production of biogas, as of now replacing close to 30 % of the fossil gas in the national grid. A history of technical challenges and troubled economics falls short of providing a convincing explanation of how a long troubled and heavily subsidized energy source has gained its prominence in the Danish energy policies, as well as in the grid. In this paper we identify a particular form of government supported expertise processes as a central ingredient in this story. This expertise does not consist of a central calculation, but rather in the cultivation of a heterogeneous and dispersed expertise network, that has enabled actors to engage in producing new knowledge. The articulated expertise has profound effects for the relations between existing and new actors, who through the adoption of generated knowledge and connections were able to gain a dominant role in the industry.