Promoting community renewable energy in a corporate energy world.

Small-scale, decentralized and community-owned renewable energy is widely acknowledged to be a desirable feature of low carbon futures, but faces a range of challenges in the context of conventional, centralized energy systems. This paper draws on transition frameworks to investigate why the UK has been an inhospitable context for community-owned renewables and assesses whether anything fundamental is changing in this regard. We give particular attention to whether political devolution, the creation of elected governments for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, has affected the trajectory of community renewables. Our analysis notes that devolution has increased political attention to community renewables, including new policy targets and support schemes. However, these initiatives are arguably less important than the persistence of key features of socio-technical regimes: market support systems for renewable energy and land-use planning arrangements that systemically favour major projects and large corporations, and keep community renewables to the margins. There is scope for rolling out hybrid pathways to community renewables, via joint ownership or through community benefit funds, but this still positions community energy as an adjunct to energy pathways dominated by large, corporate generation facilities

Conceptualizing a Social Sustainability Framework for Energy Infrastructure Decisions

The concept of social sustainability is discussed in a wide range of literatures, from urban planning to international development. Authors agree a notion of social sustainability is difficult to define, comprising numerous component parts (criteria), such as community cohesion, human wellbeing, effective dialogue and the access that citizens have to those that make important decisions on their behalf. The definition and measurement of these criteria and the role of social sustainability in energy decision making is a contentious issue. We argue that a community led, asset based approach is required to achieve any sense of how social sustainability can be defined in a community setting within the context of energy developments. We propose a conceptual framework based on a process of community group prioritization and visioning. Our earlier research on public participation and the role of dialogue for nuclear energy development in the UK, US and Japan is used to demonstrate barriers to be overcome if our systemic model of social sustainability is to become a reality. We highlight the importance of fairness and justice, place based approaches and socio-energy systems, concluding that these are necessary to promote a community and institutional awareness of social sustainability for large energy developments

Application of geographical information system to site selection of small run-of-river hydropower project by considering engineering/economic/environmental criteria and social impact

In the process of site selection of a small run-of-river hydropower project in Thailand, some problems are addressed as follows: the accessibility of the possible sites which are mostly located in rural and mountainous areas, the large amount of data required, and the lack of participation of the local people living nearby. In order to cope with these problems, this study proposes a new method to select feasible sites of small run-of-river hydropower projects by using Geographic Information System (GIS) technology. A combination of engineering, economic, and environmental criteria, as well as social impact is employed in this study. The selected study area is the upper Nan river basin situated in the north of Thailand. For the engineering criteria, the project locations are found by GIS in visual basic platform, and then economic evaluations of the selected projects are performed. Next, the environmental parameters are used to rank the projects by total weighted scores. Finally, a social impact study at the potential sites is conducted based on the public participation process, i.e. questionnaire survey and focus group discussions. The applicability of the proposed method is verified by the results of site selection of the small hydropower projects located on the Nan river basin in Thailand. This case study can be the model for the process of site selection of similar projects.Small run-of-river hydropower Geographic Information System Public participation Questionnaire survey Focus group Site selection

Hydro energy

Hydro energy production constitutes the most extensively exploited renewable energy type all over the world. It is renewable depending on the hydrological cycle and has the least greenhouse gas emission into the atmosphere. This chapter presents various facades of hydroelectric energy generation and exposes all the alternatives for its production. Basic definitions, production methodologies, calculation methods, case studies, present and future prospects are presented for further possible research. Pros and cons of the hydro energy production facilities are explained and it is emphasized that the hydropower generation is the least harmful to the environment provided that basic principles are considered in any plant design