A Comparative Case Study of Electric Utility Companies’ Use of Energy Democracy in Strategic Communication

Abstract

A substantial increase in distributed renewable energy resources is changing the face of the energy environment, leading to strategic communication efforts by key stakeholders. The energy democracy movement supports this transformation from fossil fuels to distributed renewable energy and aims for equitable involvement of publics in energy decision making. These tenets challenge utility company earnings as they are directly related to energy sales and infrastructure returns on investment. Proposals by electric utility companies to restructure net-metering policies as a solution to financial issues have been criticized as prohibitive to the success of renewable energy advancement. To address these disagreements, the Edison Electric Institute and a communication firm, Maslansky & Partners, created The Future of Energy: A Working Communication Guide for Discussion. This handbook provides utility companies with strategic communication guidelines to portray themselves as supportive of renewables within a dynamic energy industry. We posit that aspects of the energy democracy movement have been employed by electric utility companies, as shown through the use of the handbook, as a strategy for communicating with customers in discussions around net metering. We examine two case studies in states with recent controversial net-metering policy changes by analyzing utility company websites and press releases for the use of the communication handbook terminology. We found that, in both cases, the suggested language was used to position their companies as pro-renewable energy and their utility-scale projects as more equitable for their customers. In addition, we found differences between each company's use of key terms from the handbook. We posit that this is due to the temporal context of each net-metering debate at the time of the handbook release. Conclusions and future directions for research in the growing area of energy democracy are discussed.Keywords: electricity, energy, energy democracy, net metering, strategic communication A dramatic increase in solar power adoption has occurred in the last decade, in part because of the growing consumer interest in green energy, coupled with significant decreases in associated costs (Weiner, 2015;Muro and Saha, 2016). The unprecedented speed at which distributed resources are changing energy systems underscores the challenge and importance of understanding the roles of humans in this transition. This evolution is especially apparent in democratic societies in which participatory communication is integral to resolving environmental issues (Stephens et al., 2015). Energy democracy is a movement that aims to involve publics in energy decision making with emphasis on the transformation from fossil fuels to renewable energy and distributed systems (Fairchild, 2017). This aligns with a broader effort in environmental communication to address human-caused threats to ecological systems and the failure of social institutions to confront these threats (Cox, 2007). Some propose that scholars...

Communicating climate change and energy in rural Africa: A case analysis to explain how participatory communication can support transition to renewables and adoption of solar technologies in rural Africa

“…Instead of receiving communication about solar from mediated channels, participants of this study prefer to be involved in the conception of the energy framework as well as the message that is to be shared with them. This finding of participation in communication creation is an essential addition to the arguments of energy democracy proponents (Burke and Stephens, 2017;Burke, 2018;McKasy and Yeo, 2018;Stephens, et al, 2018) who posit that community engagement via dialogues and community exchanges at all levels is essential for smooth energy transition. As seen above, the participatory process has a democratic character, a model which wants actors to develop energy ideas from the grassroots level.…”

“…Stephens et al (2018), examining Vermont's energy transition approach, found that communities rejected numerous renewable energy projects in the US because of lack of ownership. Burke and Stephens (2017) and McKasy and Yeo (2018) hold similar views on public engagement. Over the past few decades, public and community engagement in policy initiatives through dialogue has emerged as a code of good practice in governance.…”

“…There are two possible reasons to explain this heightened interest. The first is that science communication is increasingly tilt- ing towards solving human induced problems to ecosystems and environmental threats (McKasy and Yeo, 2018;Gill et al, 2008). In addition, amplified advocacy and lobbying from pressure groups seem to have increased public awareness about these subjects (Nyoh Israel Bionyi, 2019, p.2-6).…”