The paper examines the ongoing ‘energy transition’ in the European periphery through the lens of Ecologically Unequal Exchange (EUE) theories and with the tools of anthropological research. The paper focuses on the major Portuguese industrial and logistic hub, the Sines area, which has attracted a considerable volume of investments for the ‘greening’ of existing fossil infrastructures and the expansion into new sectors, including hydrogen production, data centres and lithium battery manufacturing, all powered by renewable energies. The industrial reconfiguration of the area is premised on the large-scale expansion of renewable energies, including some of the largest solar park projects in Europe. The decentralized expansion of ‘clean’ energy production runs parallel to the energy-intensive concentration of ‘green’ industries and the polarisation of a growing workforce, including a significant number of migrants. Originally developed as a growth pole with the concentration of oil-based industries and a deep-sea export port, the Sines area provides an interesting case for unravelling the scalarity of unequal relations, from the micro-regional level to the wider global flows of money, labour, energy and resources. As a strategic hub of industrial investments in a peripheral European economy, the Sines offers a compelling case to explore the interface between concomitant processes of peripheralizations and centralization.

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