What is Sustainable Energy Democracy in Law?

Energy democracy has emerged in the context of the clean energy transition and decentralization as an element of that transition. It has emerged relatively recently in Europe and in the United States and has started to raise a number of questions in the area of social sciences and law. These questions relate to the function and role of sustainable energy democracy, but also to the legal nature of the concept of sustainable energy democracy. This chapter sets out to explore and answer these questions. Sustainable energy democracy has no well-established definition, let alone a legally binding one. It is used in different contexts with different meanings. This chapter investigates the concept of sustainable energy democracy in three steps. First, it deciphers the concept and demonstrates how it rests on these two fundamental aspects, being the decentralized generation of sustainable energy on the one hand and the fair distribution of the burdens and benefits of the energy sector on the other. This is achieved through a review of relevant scientific literature and governmental and non-governmental documents. Second, it explains the role of sustainable energy democracy in law. It argues that energy democracy is a legal objective (as opposed to a principle or a rule) and introduces some legal approaches to demonstrate how the objective of sustainable energy democracy can be translated into specific legal instruments. Third, it provides insights into how this translation into concrete legal instruments has been achieved in practice.<br/

Grasping for Energy Democracy

Until recently, energy law has attracted relatively little citizen participation. Instead, Americans have preferred to leave matters of energy governance to expert bureaucrats. But the imperative to respond to climate change presents energy regulators with difficult choices over what our future energy sources should be, and how quickly we should transition to them—choices that are outside traditional regulatory expertise. For example, there are currently robust nationwide debates over what role new nuclear power plants and hydraulically fractured natural gas should play in our energy mix, and over how to maintain affordable energy for all while rewarding those who choose to put solar panels on their roofs. These questions are far less technical and more value laden than most of the questions energy bureaucrats faced in the past. Consequently, these issues have provoked a growing call for the “democratization” of energy law, so that the field might better inject Americans’ preferences and goals into decisions over energy policy. But exactly how the democratization of energy law might proceed remains unclear. Indeed, the concept of “energy democracy” has taken on significantly different—and frequently conflicting—meanings in debates over energy law reform. This Article argues that the lack of clarity over the meaning of energy democracy presents a troubling hurdle to the burgeoning project of democratizing energy law, as different conceptions of the term demand divergent legal reforms. To make this case, it first identifies three distinct conceptions of energy democracy in discussions of energy law reform: consumer choice, local control, and access to process. It then explains how each of these visions counsels for a different set of regulatory reforms, which instantiate distinct processes for channeling citizen preferences about the future of our energy system. As regulators choose among these visions, it is imperative that they understand the stakes of embracing any particular conception of “energy democracy.” This Article advances that endeavor by tying the rhetoric of energy democracy to concrete proposals for reform, and evaluating what each portends for the “democratization” of energy law. It concludes with a note of caution about too swiftly embracing “consumer choice” or “local control,” since each risks narrowing modes of participation in ways that may diminish from a robust conversation about the grid-wide changes needed in U.S. energy supply

Energy Democracies and Publics in the Making: A Relational Agenda for Research and Practice

Mainstream approaches to energy democracy and public engagement with energy transitions tend to adopt specific, pre-given meanings of both “democracy” and “publics.” Different approaches impose prescriptive assumptions about the model of participation, the identity of public participants, and what it means to participate well. The rigidity of many existing approaches to energy participation is increasingly being challenged by the ever-multiplying diversity of ways in which citizens participate in energy systems, as consumers in energy markets, protesters against new infrastructures and technologies, as initiators of community energy projects, and as subjects of behavior change interventions, amongst others. This paper is concerned with growing areas of scholarship which seek to understand and explore these emerging energy publics and forms of energy democracy from a relational perspective. Such work, grounded in constructivist and relational ontologies, views forms of participatory democracy and publics as being co-produced, constructed, and emergent through the performance of collective practices. It pays closer attention to power relations, politics, materiality, exclusions, and effects in both understanding and intervening in the making of energy democracy. This in turn shifts the focus from studying discrete unitary forms of “energy democracy” to one of understanding interrelations between multiple diverse energy democracies in wider systems. In this paper, we chart these developments and explore the significant challenges and potential contributions of relational approaches to furthering the theories, methods, and practices of energy democracy and energy public engagement. The paper draws on an expert workshop, and an accompanying review, which brought together leading proponents of contending relational approaches to energy participation in direct conversation for the first time. We use this as a basis to explore tensions between these approaches and set out a relational agenda for energy democracy research in terms of: developing concepts and theories; methodological and empirical challenges; and implications for practices of governance and democratic engagement with energy transitions

Energy democracy, dissent and discourse in the party politics of shale gas in the United Kingdom

Drawing from an extensive content analysis of the UK parliamentary debate over shale gas, we use the UK shale gas case to explore how energy democracy themes are used and countered in the framing strategies of discourse coalitions in national political sites. Furthermore, we explore the extent to which these national political sites and discursive strategies are effective as institutions and practices through which to achieve energy democracy. We achieve this through an analysis of the success of the UK anti- and pro-shale gas development discourse coalitions in recruiting national political figures and influencing thinking and decision-making in parliament. In doing so, we bring together the literatures on discourse coalitions and energy democracy. We conclude with implications for both national policy as well as critical inquiry into environmental politics

Democracy in the Dark: An Energy Democracy Model Centering Property and People

The United States’ electric macro-grid provides electricity for all people to sustain our lifestyle. The current governing institutions that generate our electricity limit community representation, causing procedural injustice particularly to communities of color. This thesis is a contribution to the Energy Democracy literature, describing a community-based electricity model that includes two components: property and people. I argue to include an in-depth study of John Locke’s theories on property, in addition to Elinor Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development Framework to promote local knowledge in understanding how physical space and governing bodies strengthen the Energy Democracy movement. In addition, I utilize the works from Karl Marx and Grace Lee Boggs to describe the process of local self-reliance to community empowerment. This Energy Democracy approach centering property and people aims to revolutionize a system that promotes equity and democracy

The Rise and Fall of Energy Democracy: 5 Cases of Collaborative Governance in Energy Systems

A wide range of actors are seeking to democratize energy systems. In the collaborative governance process of energy system transitions to net zero, however, many energy democracy concepts are watered down or abandoned entirely. Using five renewable energy case studies, we first explore the diversity of energy democratizing system challengers and bottom-up actors. Secondly, we analyze the role of conflict and challenges arising from the subsequent collaborative governance process and identify what appear to be blind spots in the CG literature. Our case studies on Berlin (GER), Jena (GER), Kalmar (SWE),Minneapolis (US) and Southeast England (UK) include different types of policy processes and actors. They suggest that actors championing energy democracy principles play an important role in opening participation in the early stages of collaborative energy transition governance. As collaborative governance progresses, participation tends to be increasingly restricted. We conclude that collaborative processes by themselves are insufficient in maintaining energy democracy principles in the energy transition. These require institutional embedding of participative facilitation and consensus building. The Kalmar case study as our only successful example of energy democracy suggests that a more intermediated and service-oriented approach to energy provision can create a business case for democratizing energy provision through collaborative governance

The Rise and Fall of Energy Democracy: 5 Cases of Collaborative Governance in Energy Systems

A wide range of actors are seeking to democratize energy systems. In the collaborative governance process of energy system transitions to net zero, however, many energy democracy concepts are watered down or abandoned entirely. Using five renewable energy case studies, we first explore the diversity of energy democratizing system challengers and bottom-up actors. Secondly, we analyze the role of conflict and challenges arising from the subsequent collaborative governance process and identify what appear to be blind spots in the CG literature. Our case studies on Berlin (GER), Jena (GER), Kalmar (SWE), Minneapolis (US) and Southeast England (UK) include different types of policy processes and actors. They suggest that actors championing energy democracy principles play an important role in opening participation in the early stages of collaborative energy transition governance. As collaborative governance progresses, participation tends to be increasingly restricted. We conclude that collaborative processes by themselves are insufficient in maintaining energy democracy principles in the energy transition. These require institutional embedding of participative facilitation and consensus building. The Kalmar case study as our only successful example of energy democracy suggests that a more intermediated and service-oriented approach to energy provision can create a business case for democratizing energy provision through collaborative governance

Low Carbon Energy Democracy in the Global South?

Social science tools and practitioner experiences help to understand relations of democratic processes to low carbon energy transitions in the Global South. This requires interrogating Euro-centric assumptions about participation, national development, and infrastructure models in conditions of inequality and state capture. Issues of historical extractive energy injustice and the asymmetries of Southern climate vulnerability as compared to Northern GHG emission sources, drag this topic into political focus for questioning the models of mass consumption that have driven economic development over two centuries. Can democracy be reinvented with renewables

Energy Transition and Energy Democracy in East Asia

This is an open access book. The subject of this book is to provide down-to-earth information on what kind of actions are being taken by the Government, Local community, Businesses, Researchers, NGOs on the energy transition in this region. It gives an updated picture of the energy transition in the East Asian countries, where the economic growth, as well as CO2 emission growth, is significant. This book focuses not only on the technological perspective of the energy transition but also on the relationship between democracy and energy transition. Readers of this book can understand what kind of international support and pressure is needed to promote the energy transition in this region. Since energy transition is needed not only for combatting climate change but also for the Green Recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, publishing this book is very helpful to promote the Green Recovery and the Green New Deal world-widely