Tineke van der Schoor
Kenniscentrum NoorderRuimte
Introduction
Results
The transition to a decentralized
renewable energy system requires the
transformation of communities.
Increasingly, citizens become ‘prosumers’
and take energy production in their own
hands.
My analysis combines Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and Social Movement Theory (SMT),
to allow a dynamic analysis of collective strategies.
Recently, many citizens pool their
resources to start a local energy initiative.
In the Netherlands, for instance, more
than 500 such local initiatives seek to
reshape the energy system in the face of
constraints embedded in technical,
cultural, economic and political traditions.
In my research I investigate such
constraints, or obduracies, which are both
physical and political. The physical built
environment resists change and brings
along unsustainability due to the layout of
buildings and infrastructures; the
politically established way of centralized
decision making resists the attempts of
local initiatives to change the energy
system.
First, ANT is mobilized to describe the local networks consisting of human actors as well
as institutions, buildings, energy technologies and infrastructures. More specifically, I
investigate the obduracy and scripts of the local environment to clarify how the local
network both resists change and invites specific forms of energy use and production.
Present layout will be contrasted with low-carbon re-designs of the built environment.
ANT-writers include Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and John Law.
Secondly, I employ Social Movement Theory to unravel the emergence of local energy
initiatives as a new phase in the history of the energy movement, where new political
demands are voiced for the democratic control of energy policies.
SMT classics include Alain Touraine and Alberto Melucci.
My theoretical contribution is to combine SMT and ANT in the analysis of recent attempts
to decentralize and decarbonize the energy system. While I use the micro-analysis of
ANT I aim to circumvent its myopia by tracing the national and regional networks that
form the community energy movement. Likewise, I follow
political moves with SMT without ignoring its blind spot:
the technological embeddedness of social movements.
Materials and methods
•Investigation of linkages of local
initiatives to regional and national
networks for community energy, such as
traditional environmental movement
organisations, village support
organisations, as well as newly formed
regional energy co-operations.
•Finding out how the regional networks
channel demands for the democratic
control of energy policies to the national
government and how they negotiated the
Dutch Energy Covenant.
•Methods include qualitative interviews,
observation, design research. All
materials are analysed with Nvivo.
Literature (selection)
Hoffman SM, High-Pippert A. From
private lives to collective action:
Recruitment and participation
incentives for a community energy
program. Energy Policy 2010
Walker G, Devine-Wright P. Community
renewable energy: What should it
mean? Energy Policy 2008
Schweizer-Ries P. Energy sustainable
communities: Environmental
psychological investigations. Energy
Policy 2008
Conclusions
Central in my paper will be a discussion of
the obduracy of the energy system and
how it is challenged
- by new connections between
communities and global networks,
- by new types of energy providers that are
rooted in social networks, and
- by new scripts for the local built
environment.
Furthermore, I draw attention to the way
local communities act as a testing ground
for practices that foreshadow a
decentralized and decarbonized energy
system.
Jolivet E, Heiskanen E. Blowing against
the wind—An exploratory application
of actor network theory to the
analysis of local controversies and
participation processes in wind
energy. Energy Policy 2010
Viardot E. The role of cooperatives in
overcoming the barriers to adoption
of renewable energy. Energy Policy
2013
• Tineke van der Schoor, Hanze University of Applied Sciences,
[email protected], tel. +31505955391
• Supervisor: Harro van Lente, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences,
Maastricht University
• Co-supervisor: Alexander Peine, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable
Development, Utrecht University