Energy transition through community energy, local energy and smart local energy system initiatives in the UK: a systematic review of technologies, ownership and user engagement

While there has been much interest in community energy (CE) within policy and academia, political interest and support have fluctuated in most European countries, depending on the political orientation of incumbent governments. To investigate some of the broader social benefits of CE, this paper uses insights from energy justice (EJ) research and empirical data from 12 semi-structured interviews with CE professionals, academics and volunteers in the UK. Three key benefits of CE are identified which have not been fully explored in existing literature, all of which are linked by the overarching concept of trust. Firstly, CE organisations often serve as “trusted intermediaries”, offering trusted advice and support. Secondly, CE organisations were found to be well placed to engage with marginalised communities by building trust and offering energy poverty alleviation support. Thirdly, through trust, CE organisations can enhance linking social capital, providing a connection between local people and those in positions of authority. Overall, this paper advances theoretical understandings of EJ by identifying “informational justice” as a fourth tenet of EJ, distinct from distributional, procedural and recognitional forms of justice. More specifically, it identifies the provision of trusted information as foundational to achieving EJ, which has been underacknowledged in the literature. It concludes with suggestions for how CE initiatives can better engage with marginalised communities to avoid perpetuating socio-economic inequalities and broaden political support. Three key recommendations are identified: implementing a genuinely community-centred approach, embedding inclusive organisational practices, and creating diverse and accessible opportunities for engagement.

Community energy initiatives (CEI) have continued to grow over recent decades. CEI are often seen as key actors in delivering social innovation, challenging dominant energy regimes and embedding energy justice principles through place-based approaches. However, these aspects have yet to be explored in an integrated manner within the context of community energy. Not doing so risks overlooking key dynamics in how place, in particular place attachment, meaningfully shapes more just outcomes of CEI, as well as the energy transition more generally. Hence, this paper explores the interplay between place attachment and energy justice in practice. Drawing on 30 semi-structured interviews conducted across 11 case study sites, this study examines how CEI actors understand, narrate and enact energy justice and place attachment in shaping processes and outcomes of CEI. Findings highlight, that social and physical characteristics of place, along with cognitive-emotional people-place bonds, serve as both a foundation and a driver for advancing dimensions of energy justice. In particular, trust and pride foster a sense of belonging and wellbeing, which in turn support more effective community action.

Recent European policy efforts stimulate the emergence of community energy initiatives, and the European Commission explicitly aims to enable a just transition towards a low-carbon energy system. One of the prevalent assumptions is that fostering community energy will bring about energy justice. Intrigued by this assumption, we conduct an extending systematic literature review to explore how the notion of energy justice is discussed within scholarly work on community energy initiatives in Europe. We detected a tendency of community energy scholars to not (yet) fully employ the inherent scope the concept of energy justice entails. Therefore, we propose that community energy justice should be analyzed through three different lenses: energy justice occurring within community energy initiatives, between initiatives and related actors, and beyond initiatives. Extending the energy justice lens to address these different levels helps to better bring out the encompassing premise that the notion of energy justice entails, both analytically and in practice. Through our analysis different energy justice impacts come to the fore, for example related to social inequality: not all societal groups are equally positioned to benefit from policies focused on community initiatives. Considering the policy efforts to stimulate community energy development, we argue that these impacts can be amplified, due to cumulative power of many community energy initiatives together. Our contribution highlights that for making energy transitions just, a broader and more connected understanding of energy justice in the context of community energy initiatives is central.

Community energy (CE) initiatives have been progressively spreading across Europe and are increasingly proposed as innovative and alternative approaches to guarantee higher citizen participation in the transition toward cleaner energy systems. This paper focuses the attention on Italy, a Southern European country characterized by relatively low CE sector development. It fills a gap in the literature by eliciting and presenting novel and comprehensive evidence on recent Italian CE sector developments. Through a stepwise approach it systematically maps and reviews Italian CE initiatives, to then focus the attention on three specific case studies to further explore conditions for development as well as of success within the Italian energy system. The analysis presents an Italian CE sector still at its niche level, characterized by small initiatives largely dependent on national photovoltaics (PV) policy support. It also points out how only larger initiatives, able to operate at national scale, developing multiple projects and differentiating their activities have managed to continue growing at the time of discontinuity of policy support and contraction of the national renewable energy market. Recent EU and national legislative development might support revived development of CE initiatives in Italy.

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

The New Zealand government has earmarked community energy as an investment mechanism that could assist the country in reaching its climate change goals, as well as lead to local benefits for its citizens. The objective of this paper is to identify what community energy initiatives are occurring in New Zealand, and the respective impacts that have arisen. A desk survey was undertaken, through an academic database and internet search to collect relevant resources and data. The country has a history of community energy initiatives; however, data on the impacts of community energy initiatives are scarce, at both a local and national level. The study also found diversity in the communities that are, or possibly could, benefit from community energy projects, each with differing motivations for participation. A national understanding of the successful impacts of community energy initiatives is needed, as well as more monitoring and analysis on the impacts of current projects. Ascertaining the true value of community energy is a complex task, but vital should development of these projects be pursued.

Citizen-driven Renewable Energy (RE) projects of various kinds, known collectively as community energy (CE), have an important part to play in the worldwide transition to cleaner energy systems. On the basis of evidence from 8 European countries, we investigate CE, over approximately the last 50 years (c.1970-2018), through the lens of Social Innovation (SI). We carry out a detailed review of literature around the social dimension of renewable energy; we collect, describe and map CE initiatives from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the UK; and we unpack the SI concept into 4 operational criteria which we suggest are essential to recognising SI in CE. These are: 1) Crises and opportunities; 2) the agency of civil society; 3) reconfiguration of social practices, institutions and networks; 4) new ways of working. We identify three main phases of SI in CE. The environmental movements of the 1960s and the “oil shocks” of the 1970s provided the catalyst for a series of innovative societal responses around energy and self-sufficiency. A second wave of SI relates to the mainstreaming of RE and associated government support mechanisms. In this phase, with some important exceptions, successful CE initiatives were mainly confined to those countries where they were already embedded as innovators in the previous phase. The third phase of CE innovation relates to the societal response to the Great Recession that began in 2007-8 and lasted most of the subsequent decade. CE initiatives formed around this time were also strongly focused around democratization of energy and citizen empowerment in the context of rising energy prices, a weak economy, and a production and supply system dominated by excessively powerful multinational energy firms. CE initiatives today are more diverse than at any time previously, and are likely to continue to act as incubators for pioneering initiatives addressing virtually all aspects of energy. However, large multinational energy firms remain the dominant vehicle for delivery of the energy transition, and the apparent excitement in European policy circles for “community energy” does not extend to democratization of energy or genuine empowerment of citizens.

Circular economy principles in community energy initiatives through stakeholder perspectives

Community energy can be conceptualized as a social movement, which aims to develop a sustainable, democratic, and localist energy system. Community energy organizations often take the form of cooperatives and strive for a high level of participation at the neighborhood level. Recently, community energy initiatives took on the challenge to develop neighborhood heating projects, which are citizen-led and sustainable. District heating (DH) projects are characterized by costly investments, a substantial overhaul of local infrastructure, and large installations for heat production. Furthermore, specialized technical knowledge is needed for the design of DH-systems.In the Netherlands, we studied four cases where local energy cooperatives developed such citizen-led neighborhood heating projects. Our primary research question is what constitutes a citizen-led or citizen-supported DH-project? We focus on four themes: first, the internal organization of the CH-project; second its outreach to local citizens; third, the role of technical knowledge and technology choices; fourth, the changing role of municipalities in the local energy transition.We developed a theoretical framework that consists of three main networks: the internal network, constituted by the local energy initiative itself and its surrounding neighborhood; the external network, which is comprised of local and regional governments as well as private companies; and the material network, referring to technological and physical aspects.In the discussion, we situate our findings against a broader European background. We conclude that a democratic structure, transparency of decision making, and a high level of activities to involve the neighborhood are key success factors. Nevertheless, the development of a community DH-project is a time-consuming process that takes a high toll on the participants. We observed that the remunicipalization trend is emerging in the Netherlands. Regarding technology choices, we found that the DH-initiatives became quite knowledgeable on technical issues and stimulated the application of new technologies such as small-scale aquathermal energy. However, in some cases the choice for a low-cost solution led to concessions to the sustainability of the proposed solutions.

Proximities of energy justice: contesting community energy and austerity in England

Policy challenges to community energy in the EU: A systematic review of the scientific literature

The contribution of community-based initiatives towards sustainability transitions is of growing interest. However, systematic, quantitative, and comparative assessments of their potential impact across different environmental, social, and economic dimensions are scarce. In this paper, we present a multi-dimensional assessment of 37 initiatives grouped in the following typologies: community gardens, solidarity purchasing groups, food cooperatives, community energy, recycling, and mobility initiatives. We provide evidence of the capacity of community-based sustainability initiatives to promote effective and efficient low-carbon solutions, social capital and inclusion, human capital, economic impact, and innovation. We show that, thanks in particular to their environmental effects, community energy initiatives are the best performing, although their social impact is weak. The opposite is true for community gardens. Mobility and recycling initiatives rank lower but can obtain meaningful impacts if they engage intensively within their communities. Food cooperatives and purchasing groups have the weakest effects. However, we show that results for individual initiatives are variable—indicating that the specific activities undertaken are less important than how they are conducted. Moreover, the best-performing initiatives are usually active in more than one typology, showing that diversification is an asset. We also show some interesting correlations between the degree of diversity of participants that initiatives can attract, their propensity to diffuse knowledge, and their creativity in finding carbon-efficient solutions. Finally, top-ranked initiatives overall rarely appear at the top of any separate assessment criterion: the possibility of a community-led transition rests on their performance across several dimensions combined.

Community energy initiatives (CEIs) emphasize citizen empowerment, equitable distribution of energy transition costs and benefits, and the importance of local knowledge. While CEI goals align with energy justice principles, they have been criticized for not fully incorporating distributive justice, particularly the distribution of the benefits of a sustainable energy transition. Therefore, they may potentially perpetuate income inequalities. There are insufficient studies to conclusively determine whether CEIs perpetuate or address income inequalities. Moreover, the integration of transition studies, energy justice and business model literature is lacking, hindering effective analysis of CEI configurations that address income inequalities. This paper aims to connect the sustainability, energy justice and business model literature by dissecting the business model configurations of CEIs and assessing the inclusiveness of these components. To do so, we develop and employ an adapted business model canvas that incorporates societal and environmental considerations in the value proposition, value creation and delivery and value capture. The canvas is used to determine whether sustainability and energy justice considerations, particularly distributive justice principles, are embedded in the CEI business models. The research is focused on the Netherlands, a country with a high number of CEIs. However, the study may yield insights relevant to other countries and CEIs, informing the integration of principles for societal inclusion in their own contexts. We utilize a mixed-method approach, including interviews, desk research and surveys, to ensure robust analysis through data triangulation. The study finds that there are elements of CEI business model configurations that are aligned with energy justice principles. However, models specifically targeting and aligning with minimum income social groups are rare.

This paper investigates the support network surrounding community energy initiatives in Ireland and the potential for locally embedded organisations- which are co-ordinated centrally but consist of nation-wide local factions built on volunteerism- to act as regime-based transition intermediaries at the grassroots level to support the development and scaling up of projects in the community energy space. Building on the transition literature on intermediation, we take an innovative approach to network mapping to highlight the organisations, agencies and intermediaries supporting 9 of the most developed community energy initiatives in Ireland. On from this, we investigate the potential of a regime-based transition intermediary to support community energy at the local level, taking the Tidy Towns as the organisation under investigation. Within this, locally embedded organisations are suggested as having the ability to play a networking function for the scaling up of community energy initiatives through network development and trust building, aligning with the need to expedite the transition to a low-carbon society.

Community energy initiatives play a significant role at the grassroots level in the transition to Renewable Energy Communities and a low-carbon economy. However, these initiatives are hampered by multiple barriers at the market, institutional, organisational, and individual level. Funding cuts of state-supported feed-in tariff (FiT) policy in major markets such as Germany, Japan, China and the additional capping of the number of new installations that could be accredited under the FiT scheme in the UK. In light of these market changes and the need to accelerate the development and growth through the creation of new and/or complementary future community energy models consisting of private investors, a detailed understanding of the dynamics of community energy investor characteristics and socio-psychological motivations is increasingly important. First, a review is conducted including the theories that underpin and explain the factors that affect investor behaviour, after which a conceptual framework to examine investor behaviours towards socially responsible community energy initiatives is developed. The framework is used as the basis to construct and administer a survey involving sampling of 295 UK investors in community energy initiatives and the subsequent statistical analysis of the survey data and discussions of the findings. The results first capture the differences among investors with differing regional affect and investment behaviours. The study also provides the needed insight into better understanding the dynamics of investor characteristics and motivations of community energy initiatives. Results also indicate that investors are predominantly ethically-oriented, particularly toward environmental concerns. Additionally, community and social factors also appear to play significant roles in investor participation while financial orientation is least dominant.