Dear Colleagues,

Within the context that sustainable development is by definition related to economic growth in harmony with the limitations of nature, the use of renewable instead of conventional energy resources is a continuous demand of sustainability, aiming to satisfy the high energy needs of the current meta-industrialized society. At the international and national levels, over the course of the last several decades, the need for environmental protection has become a consensus in the policies aiming to promote sustainable development and ensure that future generations will have the same developmental opportunities as today’s society. However, at lower levels of administrative and geographical scale, where regions and similar administrative or spatial units have the task and obligation to apply desirable sustainable development policies and directives to their regional functionality, renewable energy sources are unevenly exploited and submitted to an asymmetry induced by the diverse developmental dynamics of each region. Therefore, when transmitted from the upper level of conceptualization to the lower level of implementation, sustainable development initiatives are inevitably submitted to a transformation due to the diverse pattern of the regional development dynamics, related to the uneven distribution of economic growth, suggesting the so-called regional problem.

This Special Issue aims to highlight asymmetry and other patterns in the economic development induced by the renewable energy setting and exploitation at the regional level, and thus to contribute to the understanding (a) of the “vertical” transformation of the sustainability disciplines, when transmitted from the upper stage of conceptualization to the bottom stage of implementation; and (b) of sustainability’s “horizontal” transformation throughout administrative units shaping the mosaic of interrelation between regional renewable energy and economic development. This Special Issue mainly welcomes well-founded empirical research (although theoretical works are also welcomed) which explore, study, and examine at least one of these two transformations of the interrelation between regional renewable energy and economic development. We welcome research conducted at all levels of geographical scale and in any time framework.

The main focus of this Special Issue is to promote multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research in renewable energy and economic development, where the spatial dimension is evident, although well-founded approaches focusing on a single discipline are also welcomed. Overall, this Special Issue intends to highlight the spatiality of the interrelation between renewable energy and economic development, and to promote the academic dialogue on sustainability, energy, economy, and space.

Prof. Dr. Serafeim Polyzos
Dr. Dimitrios Tsiotas
Guest Editors

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• regional economics and development
• regional asymmetry
• spatial distribution and patterns
• renewable energy
• renewable energy resources
• regional energy policies
• sustainability