Abstract
This study explores how energy might be conceptualised as a commons, a resource owned and managed by a community with a system of rules for production and consumption. It tests one aspect of Elinor Ostrom's design principles for successful management of common pool resources: that there should be community accountability for individual consumption behaviour. This is explored through interviews with participants in a community demand response (DR) trial in an urban neighbourhood in the UK. Domestic DR can make a contribution to balancing electricity supply and demand. This relies on smart meters, which raise vertical (individual to large organisation) privacy concerns. Community and local approaches could motivate greater levels of DR than price signals alone. We found that acting as part of a community is motivating, a conclusion which supports local and community based roll out of smart meters. Mutually supportive, voluntary, and anonymous sharing of information was welcomed. However, mutual monitoring was seen as an invasion of horizontal (peer to peer) privacy. We conclude that the research agenda, which asks whether local commons-based governance of electricity systems could provide social and environmental benefits, is worth pursuing further. This needs a shift in regulatory barriers and ‘governance-system neutral’ innovation funding.
Highlights
This paper explores the use of commons frameworks for urban energy management, in the context of a community-based trial of electricity demand response (DR) in a UK city
The introduction provides background on the role of DR in a smart energy system, in particular in relation to community based motivation and privacy concerns, and outlines the potential contribution of commons approaches to these challenges, focussing on the mechanisms of community accountability
In order to explore energy commons framing in an urban context, interviews and focus groups were conducted with participants involved the Less is More project (LiM), which was testing the use of a community incentive for electricity demand management
Summary
This paper explores the use of commons frameworks for urban energy management, in the context of a community-based trial of electricity demand response (DR) in a UK city. Despite substantial literature on smart grids, including discussion of their system value, DR, privacy concerns and community approaches (Beckel et al, 2014; Kloza et al, 2013), there remains a gap in scholarship bringing commons theory to this context. The introduction provides background on the role of DR in a smart energy system, in particular in relation to community based motivation and privacy concerns, and outlines the potential contribution of commons approaches to these challenges, focussing on the mechanisms of community accountability. The second section describes the case study and methodology, and the third discusses the findings of the interviews and focus group in relation to attitudes to privacy and mutual monitoring for urban electricity DR. Feedback and demand response in a smart energy system
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