Territorial dynamics of wind power expansion in rural Europe: insights from a wind-leading region

The rapid expansion of wind energy is reshaping many rural regions across Europe. While this growth supports decarbonization objectives, it also raises territorial challenges related to the spatial concentration of infrastructure, uneven distribution of impacts, and growing local conflicts. These dynamics highlight the need to analyse wind energy development as a spatiotemporal territorial process. This paper examines these dynamics through the case of Aragón, a rural region in northeastern Spain that has become one of the Europe’s leading wind power producers. Over the last decades, wind capacity has experienced rapid and unplanned expansion, largely in the absence of comprehensive territorial planning. Using a combination of geo-referenced spatial techniques and energy balance analysis, the study highlights the region's role as a net electricity exporter and reveals the persistent spatial agglomeration pattern of wind farms. Beyond the specific case, the paper proposes an analytically transferable framework for assessing the pace, geography and governance of wind deployment. Such an approach can help to anticipate spatial mismatches, institutional coordination challenges and potential conflicts that many rural European regions are likely to face in the energy transition process. Understanding wind energy deployment as a spatiotemporal territorial process is therefore essential for designing more balanced and socially accepted pathways toward a just energy transition in Europe.