Thirteenth International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

The pressing nature of the climate crisis is placing scalable sub-national action at the forefront of discussions surrounding climate mitigation. Clean energy communities are an instance of such action. Over the past decades, these communities were characterized as local-scale and citizen-led. Nonetheless, the past years’ developments signify a shift – namely towards more diversity in terms of actors (municipalities, companies, citizens, etc.) and a diversity in types of technologies (P2P energy trading schemes, demand response, storage, etc.). This added complexity makes it relevant to view energy communities as socio-technical innovation - or niches. This opens up the vexing question of what mechanisms are at play in scaling them for global-scale and aggregate impact. To this end this study tests a number of propositions set out by the strategic niche management approach by examining empirical examples of successful clean energy communities. This is done through a systematic literature review of energy community literature. Scaling mechanisms emerging from this review are then contrasted with propositions of the strategic niche management approach. Two key results surface: firstly, at the empirical level a diversity of pathways to scaling exist, however the reviewed energy communities carry common characteristics on three dimensions. These include scaling mechanisms internal to communities, ones which point towards interaction between communities and ones, which describe supportive contexts for community initiatives. Secondly, at the theoretical level, the strategic niche management approach could be enriched by focusing on actor interactions. This could assist in better connecting local scale innovation to global scale impact.

Presenters

Daniel Petrovics
Junior Researcher, Institute for Environmental Studies - Environmental Policy Analysis, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands