Harnessing Wind Power: A Socio-Technical Assemblage of Wind Energy in Thailand

Abstract

This article examines wind power development in Thailand as a contingent socio-technical assemblage. Rather than adopting a teleological or technocentric perspective, it highlights how renewable energy prospects emerge from the entanglement of sociopolitical and material conditions. Drawing on qualitative research conducted at the edge of the Korat Highlands, the study analyzes how wind energy projects are constituted through knowledge practices, institutional reforms, and material infrastructures. These projects become investible through processes of long-term measurement, data processing, and capacity factor calculation. Such practices intersect with regulatory changes that enabled private generation under power purchase agreements, supported by feed-in tariffs and subsidies. Technological advances—particularly the deployment of IEC Class 3 turbines—have extended feasibility into low-wind contexts. Yet turbine production and installation remain materially dependent on fossil fuel and other extractive resources. By foregrounding these socio-material entanglements, this article demonstrates that wind power development emerges from the interdependence of knowledge, socio-political processes, and material elements. The intensive material and energy demand of such projects is closely tied to extractive industries, contributing to cumulative energy systems. The intertwined relationship between fossil fuels and renewables challenges deterministic narratives of energy transition framed as straightforward “substitution.”