Contested power: Energy democracy and the repoliticization of electricity in the western U.S

Abstract

Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, the electricity sector in the United States enjoyed decades of relatively uncontested politics. So long as customers received reliable current at reasonable rates, they were content to allow the industry to persist in a regulatory system largely partitioned off from public input. This paradigm is changing. As concerns about climate change and grid resiliency emerge, and as market alternatives and technological developments threaten the hegemony of large-scale production and distribution, publics are increasingly confronting electricity providers and distributors. Demands that the electricity sector respond to the priorities of the communities they serve are leading to the emergence of what many have theorized as a new form of energy democracy. This study grounds these emerging theories by showing how energy democracy, both as a process and as a desired outcome, is playing out in practice. Through in-depth examination of three recent campaigns for local control over electricity in the western United States, it is argued that these grassroots efforts are creating both political and technical change that is repoliticizing electricity and opening the sector to community contestation and a socially just, low-carbon transition.