Version 3.2
Energy communities as facilitators of energy sufficiency
A framework for degrowth
The world is consuming energy beyond what can be considered sustainable, owing mostly to the persisting mantra of limitless economic growth. The need to downscale matter-energy throughput to sustainable levels is widely agreed. However, what shapes such a reduction in energy demand and ultimately consumption could take beyond the usual choir of eco-efficiency and renewables. A more radical rethinking of energy consumption is called for. In the past few decades, energy communities have emerged as a powerful organisational form to facilitate the democratisation of energy production, distribution and consumption in society. We posit that they may also formulate the foundation for reconceptualising energy away from the current growth-oriented logic of ever increasing throughput. Instead, energy communities may provide the organisational element of a needs-based framework for energy sufficiency. Owing to their direct-democratic modus operandi, their coordinated behavioural changes, and their willingness to experiment with innovative technologies, energy communities can mediate in processes of designing locally-rooted energy sufficiency policies. In these characteristics energy communities highlight a potentially strong overlap with degrowth values/literature. However, previous literature connecting these two topics is piecemeal. We therefore seek to explore firstly how energy communities fit degrowth conceptualisations and how they could help reduce matter-energy throughput. Ultimately, expanding upon commons-oriented literature on innovation and organisation studies we propose a framework for energy as a communal resource in line with degrowth. This framework embodies the main principle ingrained in the commons: commoners collectively self-limiting their consumption to ensure sufficiency for all.
Info
Day:
2023-08-30
Start time:
12:30
Duration:
00:15
Room:
ZV-KC-Cres
Type:
Paper Presentation
Theme:
Alternative economies
