Leading from the Niche: Insights from a Strategic Dialogue of Renewable Energy Cooperatives in The Netherlands

Antonia Proka, Derk Loorbach and Matthijs Hisschemöller
Additional contact information
Antonia Proka: Dutch Research Institute for Transitions, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 3062 PA Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Derk Loorbach: Dutch Research Institute for Transitions, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 3062 PA Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Matthijs Hisschemöller: Dutch Research Institute for Transitions, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 3062 PA Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 11, 1-21

Abstract: Renewable energy cooperatives envision and manifest an alternative way of organising within the energy system (and beyond). Yet, despite their growth, it is uncertain whether such initiatives are able to increase and deepen their impact, leading the transition to an environmentally sustainable and socially just energy system. This paper presents insights from a strategic dialogue co-organised with the Dutch national interest group of renewable energy cooperatives “ODE Decentraal”. We used transition management as action research methodology to organise the dialogue to understand and support the transformative potential of the cooperative energy movement. The dialogue helped to clarify the challenges and possibilities for scaling energy cooperatives beyond the niche, supporting at the same time the participants to reflect, strategize and develop a shared transition agenda. This contribution presents and analyses our intervention and its impact, also specifically evaluating the potential of transition management to facilitate social learning processes, reflexivity and the development of strategic actions. Our intervention confirmed the hypothesis that actors in the niche often focus too much on the competition with the regime for individual goals, thereby failing to collectively strategize and engage with incumbent regimes in a systematic way.

Keywords: energy transition; renewable energy cooperatives; stakeholder dialogue; backcasting; transition management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/11/4106/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/11/4106/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:11:p:4106-:d:181570

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().