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Energy Justice, Energy Democracy, and Sustainability: Normative Approaches to the Consumer Ownership of Renewables

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Energy Transition

Abstract

The evolution of consumer ownership models for renewable energies is not a solely financial issue; it is a social justice one too. Energy transitions geared towards renewables are often promised with the “best in mind”—low carbon production, greater energy efficiency, greater awareness from consumers around their consumption habits, and in the case of this book, increasingly distributed ownership (Bergman and Eyre 2011; O’Rourke and Lollo 2015). Positioned as part of this transformational change, the implementation of consumer ownership schemes in general and that of a Consumer Stock Ownership Plan (CSOP) in particular could, in theory, increase the success and speed of these energy transitions by increasing the integration of low-income, hard-to-reach consumers, enabling participation and distribution at low-threshold levels, and avoiding energy efficiency rebound effects as we move towards energy prosumption (Lowitzsch, this volume; Ellsworth-Krebs and Reid 2016). In this context, (co-)ownership appears to be a positive motivator for more sustainable practices. What is more, this could occur not only in relation to what we classically consider to be “renewable technologies”, such as wind, solar, and wave, but also increasingly in relation to the smart technologies that will become part of consumer life (Sovacool et al. 2017a). Yet consumer ownership approaches are not entirely unproblematic or without danger. This brief synthesis chapter explains why from an energy justice perspective.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Although there are many existing and relevant examples of the applications of these tenets, I focus on two. First, Healey and Barry (2017) apply them to considerations of labour markets, suggesting that energy justice scholarship does not currently give sufficient attention to the concept of “just transition”, a strategy original proposed by global labour unions. Healey and Barry (2017) outline that “labour unions have historically sought to influence the distribution of benefits and harms within energy systems by advocating and seeking just distribution, recognition and participation largely within the existing fossil fuel (and nuclear) energy systems” (see also Fraser 2005; Rosemberg 2010). In this context, they position the energy justice tenets as a tool for imagining labour trade-offs, as well as highlighting the need for more research using this frame. Forman (2017), on the other hand, investigates the community ownership of renewables (a very pertinent example) as he used the tenet framework to examine “how energy justice is negotiated and contested at community-scale through a focus on issues of distributive and procedural justice”. Forman emphasises the ways in which community energy is often involved in a wide range of local objectives and directs attention to how best to support such initiatives to further stimulate local action and deliver more widespread equity gains. Both approaches, arguably, have a role in considerations of consumer ownership models, especially when considering increasing shifts away from centralised fossil fuel production.

  2. 2.

    It is acknowledged too that there are many contractual arrangements in conventional investment schemes that avoid participation in decision-making altogether, for example, limited partnerships, silent partnerships, or bond holdings, with the latter not conferring property rights at all.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Energy Justice and Transitions, Centre on Innovation and Energy Demand, University of Sussex, Sussex, UK

    Kirsten E. H. Jenkins

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Correspondence to Kirsten E. H. Jenkins .

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  1. European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany

    Jens Lowitzsch

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Jenkins, K.E.H. (2019). Energy Justice, Energy Democracy, and Sustainability: Normative Approaches to the Consumer Ownership of Renewables. In: Lowitzsch, J. (eds) Energy Transition. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93518-8_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93518-8_4

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