The paper examines the energy transition from a peripheral European regional perspective. It focuses on a Portuguese coastal area (Sines), which has attracted a considerable volume of foreign investments related to (and presented as relevant for) the energy transition. The industrial reconfiguration of a predominantly oil and coal-based industrial region towards the “green” and digital economy is based on the expansion of renewable energies in the immediate inland. The “greening” of industrial production is thus being planned at the expense of rural areas, where some of the largest solar park projects in Europe have been approved or are under discussion, subordinating the spatially intensive expansion of renewables to the energy-intensive concentration of “green” industries. The ongoing expansion of construction activities is also attracting a growing temporary workforce, with a significant (and relatively new) presence of non-European migrant communities. While the region has become a national hotspot for “green” investment, it has also become a contested terrain for Portuguese climate justice movements promoting alternative, bottom-up visions of just transition. Situating the Portuguese case within a broader regional and global perspective, the paper attempts to connect different scales and dynamics of the energy transition to illustrate the complexity of its controversial development.

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