Reimagining energy futures: Contributions from community sustainable energy transitions in Thailand and the Philippines

Abstract

This article counters conventional discourses where sustainable energy transitions in the Global South have been broadly linked to top-down policy frameworks, large-scale installations, and donor-driven interventions. It does so by highlighting the roles played by and the potentials of bottom-up, small-scale, and community-driven initiatives in shaping energy transitions in these locations. We shed light on two of these initiatives: a rural, community-based renewable energy project in Thailand, and a community-led social movement that prevented the construction of a coal-fired power plant in the Philippines. Both cases demonstrate how community mobilizations help facilitate sustainable energy transitions in the Global South, despite their many social, political and economic constraints. The analysis draws from concepts of local activism and community engagement on energy transitions, marrying the social movement concept of prefigurative activism with the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries in science and technology studies. This article highlights that valuable insights can be generated from rural- and community-driven renewable energy initiatives and their power to reimagine the futures of energy systems in the Global South.