Communitarian approaches to sustainable development: the governance, local impacts and costs of community energy

Abstract

This dissertation explores the governance, local impacts and costs of community-owned renewable energy (CRE). The objective is to understand if and in what context collective local ownership models represent a feasible and effective means to operationalising a more 'sustainable development' in the renewable energy sector and beyond. The articles draw on a range of fields, from energy governance and project economics to impact evaluation. Specific methodologies used are systematic literature review, discourse analysis, historical institutional analysis and risk-extended net present valuation. Unique contributions of this work are a meta-level understanding of the community energy sector in the UK and an understanding of its emergence in context of technological and institutional change. In addition, it provides an explicit assessment of Quality of Evidence problems in this subfield of energy and social science research, placing it firmly in the context of current literature and methods in project economics and impact evaluation. Findings show that ownership patterns in the energy sector are precarious and subject to changing narratives that emerge in response to domestic socio-economic and political dilemma's, exogenous shocks, and emerging economic schools of thought. CRE projects have the potential to generate a variety of positive local impacts that vary depending on the motivation and management of projects and project revenues. Under certain conditions CRE can empower community organisations to address systemic socio-economic problems in the public domain. Finally, in a competitive market setting and where CRE is implemented by newly-established grassroots organisations, projects face a range of risks that commercial projects do not, and that erode their financial viability. As such, the development and expansion of community renewable energy as a substantial proportion of the energy sector requires policy makers to assign it special status and provide policy support on the basis of its local social, economic and environmental benefits. Policy support for community renewable energy requires a willingness to integrate energy and social policy domains.