Facilitating Energy Transition through Energy Commons: An Application of Socio-Ecological Systems Framework for Integrated Community Energy Systems

Acosta, Cristina; Ortega, Mariana; Bunsen, Till; Koirala, Binod Prasad; Ghorbani, Amineh

doi:10.3390/su10020366

Cited by 63 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Article contributions to this special issue came from a wide set of academic disciplines from the behavioral and social sciences, like law [49,62], psychology [46,50,51,56], sociology [45,53], governance and policy studies [54,57,59], economics [48,60,63], econometrics [61], anthropology [47,52], ethics [56], geography [55,64], and environmental sciences [58].…”

Section: Background Characteristics Of Article Contributions To This mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social Innovation and the Energy Transition

Hoppe

Vries

2018

Sustainability

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The transition to low carbon energy systems cannot solely rely on technological innovation. It also requires social innovation. In the context of energy transition social innovation can be defined as innovation that is social in its means and which contributes to low carbon energy transition, civic empowerment and social goals pertaining to the general wellbeing of communities. This article presents the editorial comment of the special issue “Social Innovation and the Energy Transition”. It seeks to answer the questions, “what does social innovation mean in the face of energy transition, and what are its implications?” This special issue yields 20 article contributions by authors from different academic disciplines within the behavioral and social sciences. From these contributions, key topics relevant to social innovation emerge, pertaining to: (i) technological innovation leading to new market models, actor configurations, and institutional settings creating room for social innovation; (ii) new governance arrangements; (iii) community energy, its impact, implications, and social incentives and policy to empower it; (iv) new participative research approaches to test and learn from livings labs and best practices; (v) ‘green nudges’ to stimulate behavioral change; and (vi), serious energy games. The editorial ends with suggestions for future research.

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Section: Background Characteristics Of Article Contributions To This mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In their contribution Acosta et al [63] introduce Integrated Community Energy Systems (ICES) and the role of community energy therein. ICES are an emerging form of local energy systems focusing on the collective use of distributed energy resources.…”

Section: Insights On Social Innovationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Innovation and the Energy Transition

Hoppe

Vries

2018

Sustainability

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“…Energy systems already include energy resources, technologies, and socio-economic processes, while socio-ecological systems more explicitly include governance systems, and actors, in addition to resource systems (energy, water, air, land, biodiversity) and their units [72]. Considering energy in the context of socio-ecological systems may generate new insights, such as the role of policies affecting household consumption, energy demand, and climate change [73][74][75].…”

Section: Establish Framework For Comparisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of indicators for comparing environmental effects across energy sources

Dorning

Diffendorfer

Loss

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Robust, quantitative comparisons of environmental effects across energy sources can support development of energy planning strategies that meet growing demand while managing and minimizing undesirable effects on environmental resources. Multicriteria analyses of energy systems often use a suite of indicators to make such comparisons, but those indicators and their units of measure vary among studies. We reviewed 179 papers that described or applied energy indicators to compare environmental effects of different primary energy sources to answer four questions:(1) what environmental indicators have been used in multicriteria energy-source comparisons? (2) across studies, how consistently are these indicators used to quantify effects? (3) to what degree are different effects accounted for across energy sources and locations? and (4) how comprehensive are indicators in terms of assessing known environmental effects? For reviewed studies, we quantified the number of unique indicators and the diversity of indicators used to measure different effects. We also recorded the specific measurement units applied to quantify each indicator, the energy sources evaluated, and the continent where each study was conducted. While we found that many environmental effects of energy development have been analyzed across multiple sources, indicators were frequently measured, interpreted, and applied in ways that are not directly comparable, and some known environmental effects were infrequently assessed. We also found an emphasis on applying indicators to renewable energy sources; assessing current and potential energy sources, both renewable and nonrenewable, would greatly clarify the full suite of tradeoffs among sources and can inform energy development strategies that minimize adverse environmental effects. Overall, our review indicated that making comprehensive comparisons of the effects of energy development across sources may require efforts to standardize how effects are measured, synthesize effects literature into an open-source database, expand the range of environmental effects analyzed, and establish consistent frameworks for comparison.

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“…Although von Wirth et al [13] suggested using geographical information systems to quantify the potential for the local acceptance of DESs with respect to technical, spatial, and social aspects, this is not applicable here because the case area does not contain any inhabitants and the city owns the land. In a socio-ecological system framework for ICESs by Acosta et al [40], the research was grounded in the early design phase, where the discussion moved from the initial phase to soft variables. In negotiation terms, this phase addresses the mapping of interests without premature commitment to the potential solutions [41].…”

Section: Research Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stakeholders’ Interests in Developing an Energy Ecosystem for the Superblock—Case Hiedanranta

2019

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Policy objectives aimed toward zero-energy buildings call for the utilization of building-integrated renewable energy and distributed energy resources (DER). To enhance the utilization of DER, previous literature proposed the concept of an integrated community energy system (ICES). This research suggested using superblocks (units of multiple urban blocks) to define geographical limits, social contexts, and possibly common administrations for ICESs along with other living- and sustainability-related activities in an urban context. Through interviews with key stakeholders and an analysis, this research investigates the applicability of the superblock-ICES as a way of reaching the low-carbon objectives in the Hiedanranta brownfield development project in the city of Tampere, Finland. This research confirms that the driving forces of community-based solutions are economic benefits, technical development, and objectives of sustainability, and reveals or confirms that social acceptability, missing planning practices, economic risk, and missing or hindering legislation are the main issues or barriers of superblock-ICESs. For a wider adoption of superblock-ICESs, this research suggests cross-disciplinary piloting, together with developing planning practices and simulation tools. In Finland, legislative reforms are needed to remove the barriers and clarify issues related to security, reliability, customer protection, and public interest in governing a locally and collectively owned energy system.

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Facilitating Energy Transition through Energy Commons: An Application of Socio-Ecological Systems Framework for Integrated Community Energy Systems

Cited by 63 publications

References 24 publications

Social Innovation and the Energy Transition

Social Innovation and the Energy Transition

Review of indicators for comparing environmental effects across energy sources

Stakeholders’ Interests in Developing an Energy Ecosystem for the Superblock—Case Hiedanranta

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