Abstract
Energy transitions involve long-term structural change and are generally presented and discussed in ‘grand narrative’ terms: low carbon, sustainable growth, smart systems. Yet demand for energy services has always been highly distributed and local considerations are also becoming more prominent on the supply side, with developments in distributed electricity generation and heat networks.This paper is based primarily on interviews and observations with low-income householders and their energy advisers, carried out in a district of central Scotland whose economy had depended on coal and paraffin shale mining for over a century. Many older residents had experienced a transition from belonging to fuel-producing communities and handling solid fuels to becoming ‘consumers’ in uneasy and uncomprehending relationships with distant suppliers of gas and electricity. Their stories add texture to ‘grand narratives’ of energy transition, demonstrating, for a particular place and time, some of the complexity and path dependencies of energy systems and how they play out in social and distributional terms. They show how local resources, institutions, social networks and built environment can affect energy services and responses to them, highlighting the role of ‘middle actors’ in an energy advice service as guides to transition.
Highlights
Stories have been used throughout history to make sense of both extraordinary and everyday phenomena, and to shape our responses to them
This paper starts from two premises: that energy transition operates at many levels or scales and can be understood at many levels; and that transition is not a uniform process but one influenced by both geography and history [1,2]
The stories illustrate ways in which geography, history and politics have shaped the built environment and patterns of energy supply and demand, the impacts of change on relatively vulnerable citizens, and the role of energy advisers in helping them to cope. They show how energy transition stories can emerge from lived experience and social learning, as well as from a policy blueprint or high-level scenario: transition is enacted, experienced and expressed in personal and local terms, as a grand progress of technological innovation and adoption
Summary
Stories have been used throughout history to make sense of both extraordinary and everyday phenomena, and to shape our responses to them. This paper starts from two premises: that energy transition operates at many levels or scales and can be understood at many levels; and that transition is not a uniform process but one influenced by both geography and history [1,2] It offers extracts from residents and energy advisers’ accounts of energy transition in a particular locality and uses them to illustrate the value of personal and communal stories for energy research and policy. The stories illustrate ways in which geography, history and politics have shaped the built environment and patterns of energy supply and demand, the impacts of change on relatively vulnerable citizens, and the role of energy advisers in helping them to cope They show how energy transition stories can emerge from lived experience and social learning, as well as from a policy blueprint or high-level scenario: transition is enacted, experienced and expressed in personal and local terms, as a grand progress of technological innovation and adoption. It was only later that the value of the stories as oral history and pointers to different types of analysis started to emerge
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
