Constructing Viking Link: How the Infopower of Cost-benefit Analysis as a Calculative Device Reinforces the Energopower of Transmission Infrastructure

Abstract

This paper sheds light on the performativity of economics in the decision-making process behind Viking Link, a Danish-British interconnector under construction. It shows how energopower, that is, the political power inherent to energy infrastructures, is reinforced through the workings of cost-benefit analysis as prescribed by the Danish Ministry of Finance. In doing so, the paper offers a novel approach to the performativity of calculative devices, highlighting the role of infopower, a Foucauldian neologism denoting the power inherent to information structures. Calculative devices are understood as information infrastructures that exert power through the work of data formatting. The cost-benefit analysis, as such a calculative device, limits the potential valuations of Viking Link and hence restricts decision-making. This has impactful consequences, as the infopower of mainstream economic thinking makes it possible to disregard relevant aspects of Viking Link, like its (lacking) contribution to decarbonization and alternatives to interconnectors as ways of integrating fluctuating renewable energy.

Keywords

• cost-benefit analysis
• calculative device
• infrastructure
• Viking Link
• electric power transmission
• performativity of economics