Hydrogen and (re-)Imagination of the European Energy Transition: Unrevealing Differentiated Institutional Sociotechnical Imaginaries from the International Framework to the Provincial Contexts of Trento and Bolzano

Nowadays, the transition towards cleaner energy sources is conceived as a pivotal element for a sustainable energy transition and a wider transition to a sustainable society. In this regard, hydrogen is increasingly seen as a key component of this progression. Its role is now diffusely recognized by the scientific community and governance apparatuses as a key opportunity for decarbonizing sectors where emissions are hard-to-abate and ensuring energy security, particularly after the crisis arising from the war in Ukraine. However, this orientation is neither neutral nor an independent process. The societal search for decarbonized futures through hydrogen technologies is presenting a multitude of potential alternative pathways that differ – amongst the many elements – in the organizational and governance models behind it. Resultantly, multiple imaginaries may arise from a plethora of collectives. Sometimes they compete for materialization and technological development displaying conflicts and divergences, other times they show complementarity and integration also in relation to cultural contextuality and spatial rootedness. Drawing upon the literature on sociotechnical imaginaries (STIs), this contribution identify and analyze diverse institutional STIs associated with the activation of the hydrogen economy in Europe at different scales. Accordingly, it presents institutional STIs animated by the European institutions (e.g. European commission), the Italian government, and the provincial institutions of the Autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano, as provinces significantly involved in projects for the local production and distribution of hydrogen, and international transportation through the Central Europe and Mediterranean hydrogen corridors. Choosing not to isolate the provincial context from other pertinent scales allows to consider how the development of distinct STIs across scales may impact and shape localized trajectories of imagination at the provincial scale, and how STI may co-exist and evolve in tension or in generative dialectic relationships, either in support or contrast of a dominant (e.g. international) imaginary