Abstract
The growing phenomenon of civil society involvement in renewable energy generation has attracted researchers’ interest. However, rather little is known of how a diverse and relatively small sector such as community energy could scale up and promote a change in energy production. We examine this issue through the lens of Strategic Niche Management (SNM) and conceptualize community energy as a socio-technical niche that holds the potential to promote a transition to renewable energy. Drawing on interview data with members of community energy projects and experts in Finland, we identify different types of community energy projects and the factors that may prevent them from scaling up. The study contributes a typology of community energy projects by showing which initiatives could be more inclined to be part of a strategy aiming at scaling up the sector. It also shows the tensions of SNM in the context of non-market-driven innovation, highlighting how exogenous factors such as cultural aspects, the specific context in which community energy develops and the characteristics of community groups are also relevant in the scaling-up process.
Highlights
With a share of 42% of global CO2 emissions, energy production is the human activity that contributes the most to climate change (IEA, 2016)
This paper aimed at better understanding the scaling-up of community energy niches as a strategy to accelerate the transition to clean energy production
To understand what types of community energy projects exist in the Finnish community energy niche and, second, to identify the factors that may prevent them from scaling up, that is, moving from the level of local projects to a global niche
Summary
With a share of 42% of global CO2 emissions, energy production is the human activity that contributes the most to climate change (IEA, 2016). Despite the impressive growth of clean energy sources in recent years their share in global energy consumption remains just 19% (REN21, 2016). Together with the rise of renewable energy in transportation and energy generation smart energy management solutions that allow grid automation are diffusing (Amini et al, 2013). These technologies are promoting a change in the conventional way energy is provided and enabling new actors to participate in energy production and saving. There is no strict definition, the involvement of these civil society members in energy generation and saving can be defined as community energy (Seyfang et al, 2013)
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