A review of sustainable energy utility and energy service utility concepts and applications: realizing ecological and social sustainability with a community utility

Abstract

Strategies that guided development throughout the 20th century relied heavily on economic optimality as a chief guiding principle in the design of energy, technology, markets, and policy. A review of the record of performance of this decision‐making process is followed by a review of proposals to redefine energy progress on sustainability principles. An emerging 21st sustainability paradigm is described which relies on commons‐based economics and long‐term ecological viability. An existing operational expression of the new paradigm—the Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU)—is analyzed as a practical means to arrive at the New Economics and New Policy which might guide the sector. It is compared to the Energy Service Utility and its applications in order to gauge the transformative potential of the SEU. WIREs Energy Environ 2016, 5:136–154. doi: 10.1002/wene.171This article is categorized under: Energy Efficiency > Economics and Policy Energy and Development > Economics and Policy Energy and Development > Systems and Infrastructure