| 1. |
- Adams, Sophie, et al.
(författare)
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Social license to automate: A critical review of emerging approaches to electricity demand management
- 2021
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Ingår i: Energy Research & Social Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 2214-6296 .- 2214-6326. ; 80:October, s. 102210-12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Electricity demand-side management (DSM) programs are becoming increasingly important to energy system managers in advanced industrialized countries, especially those with high renewable energy penetration. As energy user participation is paramount for their success but has proven to be difficult to obtain, we explore the usefulness of the ‘social license’ concept, originally developed in the mining sector, to refer to the process of creating acceptance in DSM programs aimed at managing or controlling household energy resources such EVs, batteries, and heating and cooling devices. We argue that analyzing the attainment or lack of ‘social license’ may be useful to energy policy-makers and researchers for understanding public concerns with not only supply-side energy resources, but also DSM. We do so by (1) drawing attention to potential frictions between demands for flexibility on the one hand and social practices and habits on the other; (2) attending to the ways that users’ engagement in DSM programs is influenced by their sense of control and agency, and their trust in program providers; and (3) exploring the ways that users may understand their stake in the energy system and may participate in programs as collectives rather than simply as individuals. We argue that a ‘social license to automate’ could not only describe a set of tools to manage participation in DSM projects, but rather assess the ways users effectively feel part of new energy systems designed to serve them.
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| 2. |
- Baard, Patrik, 1981-
(författare)
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Knowledge, participation, and the future : Epistemic quality in energy scenario construction
- 2021
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Ingår i: Energy Research & Social Science. - : Elsevier. - 2214-6296 .- 2214-6326. ; 75
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Constructing energy scenarios is traditionally an endeavour driven by experts. I suggest that an outcome of relying solely on expertise is incompleteness. Moreover, expertise, while being a necessary condition, is not a sufficient condition for epistemic quality and normative legitimacy of energy scenarios given the scope of transitions that energy scenarios entail, which includes substantial societal repercussions. Four reasons will be provided for wide participation when constructing energy scenarios. First, there are several forecasting shortcomings of top-down approaches. Second, to rely solely on expertise provides incomplete conceptualizations of energy and central concepts such as ‘smartness’, in addition to neglecting normative views. Third, increased epistemic quality is an outcome of wide participation. A fourth reason is derived from the argument of inductive risks, stating that thresholds of evidence should reflect the potential outcomes if erroneously corroborating or rejecting a hypothesis. As energy scenarios provide input to decision-making having potentially large societal impact, they ought to be both normatively legitimate as well as of sufficient epistemic quality, components provided by wide participation.
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| 3. |
- Baker, Erin, et al.
(författare)
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Who is marginalized in energy justice? Amplifying community leader perspectives of energy transitions in Ghana
- 2021
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Ingår i: Energy Research & Social Science. - : Elsevier. - 2214-6296 .- 2214-6326. ; 73
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There is a divide in energy access studies, between technologically-focused modeling papers in engineering and economics, and energy justice frameworks and principles grounded in social sciences. Quantitative computational models are necessary when analyzing energy, and more specifically electricity, systems, as they are technologically-complex systems that can diverge from intuitive patterns. To assure energy justice, these models must be reflective of, and informative to, a wide range of stakeholders, including households and communities alongside utilities, governments, and others. Yet, moving from a qualitative understanding of preferences to quantitative modeling is challenging. In this perspective piece, we pilot the use of the value-focused thinking framework to inform stakeholder engagement. The result is a strategic objective hierarchy that highlights the tradeoffs and the social, economic and technological factors that need to be measured in models. We apply the process in Ghana, using a survey, stakeholder workshops, and follow-up interviews to uncover key tradeoffs and stakeholder-derived objectives. We discuss three key areas that have been rarely, if ever, well-represented in energy models: (1) the relationship between the dynamics of electricity end-use and the technology and economic structure of the system; (2) explicit tradeoffs between electricity access, cost, and reliability as defined by stakeholders; and (3) the definition of new objectives, such as minimizing hazards related to theft. We conclude that this model of engagement provides an opportunity to tie together rigorous qualitative analysis and stakeholder engagement with crucial quantitative models of the electricity system.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Christley, Emily, et al.
(författare)
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Sustainable energy for slums? : Using the Sustainable Development Goals to guide energy access efforts in a Kenyan informal settlement
- 2021
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Ingår i: Energy Research & Social Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 2214-6296 .- 2214-6326. ; 79
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Urban and peri-urban communities across the Global South face considerable energy access challenges with over one billion people living without adequate access to basic services such as energy, water, and healthcare. Lack of access to modern energy services has cascading effects on the United Nations 2030 Agenda and the achievement of the corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this article we address this issue, using the SDGs as a framework to evaluate how policies and plans for local energy access can be coordinated with all SDG Targets. With a case study in Kibera, Kenya, we analyse how local energy access could enable or inhibit all local SDG Targets. Based on this knowledge, we propose a set of actions to achieve full modern energy access without compromising other local Sustainable Development Goals. We propose a new taxonomy to evaluate how actions affect the interlinkages between local energy access and the achievement of the SDGs. We find that the SDGs, applied as a framework to direct national policies and strategic projects, offer a holistic outlook, helping to unpack discrete thinking and support an integrated sustainable future for all.
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| 6. |
- Johansson, Markus, 1985, et al.
(författare)
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A risk framework for optimising policies for deep decarbonisation technologies
- 2021
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Ingår i: Energy Research and Social Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 2214-6296 .- 2214-6326. ; 82
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Massive resource infusion and coordination between state and market actors are needed to develop and diffuse deep decarbonisation technologies. This makes wise policy design imperative. Policy-makers are confronted with a plethora of diverging views on which policies are preferable for a low carbon transition, and which interventions, such as R&D funding, information, environmental taxes, or bans, should be employed to achieve necessary and sufficient technological transformation. Focusing on market and technological investment risks, we offer a conceptual framework that explains why no silver bullet policy or single theoretical approach exists in regard to decarbonisation. Our framework highlights that policies need to be designed with these risks in mind and aids in the key task of matching problems and policies, thereby also facilitating judicious use of resources to optimise climate benefits from resources spent.
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| 7. |
- Mahmoud, Yahia, et al.
(författare)
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Soils, sinks, and smallholder farmers: Examining the benefits of biochar energy transitions in Kenya
- 2021
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Ingår i: Energy Research & Social Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 2214-6326 .- 2214-6296. ; 75
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Besides reducing fuel demands and indoor air pollution, pyrolytic cooking stoves produce a by-product (biochar) that can improve soil fertility and serve as a sink for carbon sequestration. Most smallholder farmers in Africa depend on wood for fuel, suffer from exposure to smoke and soils in their cultivated farms are deteriorating. Biochar (bio-charcoal) production has potentials to reduce energy requirement, diminish exposure to smoke, improve soil health and ease household activities traditionally associated with female labour. However, introducing new technologies and behaviours that tackle existing problems without creating new ones is a complex endeavour. Transitions need to be anticipatory, comprehensive and inclusive. Having this in mind, a trans-disciplinary study was conducted from 2013 to 2019 with 150 households in three agro-ecological zones of Kenya. The socio-economic conditions, the uses of fuels and stoves, the crops grown and fertilizers used, as well as the labour division within households were documented. Selected households were given pyrolitic cooking stoves and trained in applying biochar to the soil. After two years of using the cooking stoves and applying biochar, studies were conducted to assess the feasibility and preliminary impacts based on the households own perceptions and experiences. The results showed that the strategy represented a viable option to deal with fuel use efficiency, exposure to indoor smoke and soil degradation, as well as easing the burden on female labour.
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| 8. |
- Oskarsson, Patrik
(författare)
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'If the gas runs out, we are not going to sleep hungry': Exploring household energy choices in India's critically polluted coal belt
- 2021
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Ingår i: Energy Research and Social Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 2214-6296 .- 2214-6326. ; 80
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Despite a range of initiatives to introduce cleaner fuels, a large proportion of poor people in India continue to rely on solid fuels for cooking and heating, with severe implications for personal and family health. This paper seeks to open up the various fuel-supply strategies that underpin domestic energy use in low-income settings to explain the unconventional solutions (jugaad) that households employ to bridge the gap between energy needs and supply of various fuels, including liquefied petroleum gas. We draw on long-term ethnographic engagements in four severely polluted low-income urban settlements in central India’s coal belt to investigate how communities, and primarily women, ensure domestic energy provision. As households struggle to secure a range of potential fuels with different benefits and drawbacks, we outline the socio-cultural and economic processes that shape household energy decision-making. These highly uncertain processes take place within an institutional structure that offers some possibilities, but is overall too rigid to fit the lived realties of low-income residents. Although households commonly understand that there are negative health effects from solid-fuel smoke, pollution and health are only marginal considerations for households facing daily struggles to reduce expenses. We argue that understanding the everyday jugaad of household energy provision is crucial for the possibilities to shift away from fuels damaging to both human health and the environment.
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| 9. |
- Oskarsson, Patrik
(författare)
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India's new coal geography: Coastal transformations, imported fuel and state - business collaboration in the transition to more fossil fuel energy
- 2021
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Ingår i: Energy Research and Social Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 2214-6296 .- 2214-6326. ; 73
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The advance of renewable energy around the world has kindled hopes that coal-based energy is on the way out. Recent data, however, make it clear that growing coal consumption in India coupled with its continued use in China keeps coal-based energy at 40 percent of the world’s heat and power generation. To address the consolidation of coal-based power in India, this article analyses an energy transition to, rather than away from, carbon-intensive energy over the past two decades. We term this transition India’s new coal geography; the new coal geography comprises new ports and thermal power plants run by private-sector actors along the coastline and fuelled by imported coal. This geography runs parallel to, yet is distinct from, India’s ‘old’ coal geography, which was based on domestic public-sector coal mining and thermal power generation. We understand the development of coastal thermal power as an outcome of long-term electrical energy shortages and significant public controversy within the old coal geography. By analysing the making of the new coal geography at a national level, and scrutinizing its localised manifestation and impact through a case study of Goa state, we outline the significant infrastructural investment and policy work of a dispersed network of public- and private-sector actors that slowly enabled this new coal energy avatar. We argue that the enormous effort to establish India’s new coal geography further entrenches the country’s reliance on coal. The result is that for India, energy security is a choice between domestic and imported coal.
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| 10. |
- von Malmborg, Fredrik
(författare)
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Exploring advocacy coalitions for energy efficiency: Policy change through internal shock and learning in the European Union
- 2021
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Ingår i: Energy Research & Social Science. - : ELSEVIER. - 2214-6296 .- 2214-6326. ; 80
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This empirical study analyses policy change in the area of European Union energy efficiency policy by applying the advocacy coalition framework (ACF). The energy efficiency directive (EED) and its provisions on individual metering and billing (IMB) is used as a case study. IMB provisions have rendered substantial debate for almost a decade and the provisions were amended following successful advocacy work of the coalition opposing IMB. The study confirms recent developments of the ACF theory that internal shocks are important for policy change. Policy change followed other pathways too, particularly policy-oriented learning. As for policy-oriented learning, it was manifested in different ways, e.g. the acceptance of the core beliefs and proposals for amending the IMB provisions put forward by the coalition opposing IMB by a majority of Member States in the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament and the proponents of IMB. Besides contributing to development of scientific theory, the knowledge provided in the paper can inform various stakeholders to better shape their future strategies in advocacy work in European Union policy making and national policy implementation.
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