Context and agency in urban community energy initiatives: An analysis of six case studies from the Baltic Sea Region

S. Ruggiero, H. Busch, Teis Hansen and A. Isakovic

Energy Policy, 2021, vol. 148, issue PA

Abstract: In this paper, we analyse community energy (CE) projects in urban settings. Building on insights from the literature on the geography of sustainability transitions, we examine how contextual conditions promote or hinder the development of CE. Furthermore, reflecting on calls for greater attention to agency in transitions, we investigated how actors engaged in urban CE projects exploit beneficial conditions or overcome obstacles related to some of the contextual conditions. Empirically, we draw on six case studies of CE projects from the Baltic Sea Region. To develop a thorough understanding of our cases we conducted 24 semi-structured interviews and analysed numerous secondary sources. Our results show that institutions as well as visions, e.g. plans for future energy generation, are important contextual features for urban CE projects. Local actors seek to overcome unfavourable contextual conditions for CE initiatives by building trust, appealing to their community's sense of identity, networking, and promoting demonstration projects. Based on the results, we recommend that local and national governments address the following four issues to strengthen the role of CE in the transformation of urban energy systems: 1) harmonising policies; 2) creating a culture for transitions; 3) developing visions for CE; and 4) promoting policy learning from experiments.

Keywords: Energy communities; Sustainability transition; Renewable energy; Citizens; Urban energy systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421520306674
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:enepol:v:148:y:2021:i:pa:s0301421520306674

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111956

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().