Energy democracy: A digital future?
dc.contributor.author | Judson, E | |
dc.contributor.author | Fitch-Roy, O | |
dc.contributor.author | Soutar, I | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2022-09-16T09:28:42Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2022-07-11 | |
dc.date.updated | 2022-09-16T09:07:37Z | |
dc.description.abstract | Academic exploration of energy democracy has produced a rich theorization of its foundations that exhibits significant pluralism in response to different geographic, social, ideological and technical contexts. This paper develops the literature by considering how sociotechnical transitions associated with energy system digitalization may affect the theory and praxis of energy democracy. Our analysis draws on three dimensions of energy democracy: popular sovereignty, participatory governance, and civic ownership. Digitalization is shown to both present challenges and new avenues for the exercise and study of energy democracy. Firstly, digitalization simultaneously enables and constrains the exercise of popular sovereignty by diversifying energy citizen roles and complicating accountability. Secondly, digitalization creates new dimensions of risk around skills, knowledge and resource access, which can exclude citizens from participatory governance. Thirdly, digitalization challenges common conceptions of civic ownership by introducing new material-software dependencies and re-defining the assets that underpin the energy system. Finally, digitalization fundamentally changes the nature of decision-making, potentially undermining current understandings of the concept and its democratic function. Further exploration of ‘digital energy democracy’ would hold value for research and practice in the sector. | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) | en_GB |
dc.format.extent | 102732- | |
dc.identifier.citation | Volume 91, article 102732 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.doi | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2022.102732 | |
dc.identifier.grantnumber | ES/T000600/1 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/130861 | |
dc.identifier | ORCID: 0000-0003-0289-3984 (Fitch-Roy, Oscar) | |
dc.identifier | ScopusID: 36898329000 | 57218665331 (Fitch-Roy, Oscar) | |
dc.identifier | ResearcherID: N-8904-2019 (Fitch-Roy, Oscar) | |
dc.identifier | ORCID: 0000-0001-8291-9878 (Soutar, Iain) | |
dc.language.iso | en | en_GB |
dc.publisher | Elsevier | en_GB |
dc.rights | © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). | en_GB |
dc.subject | Digitalization | en_GB |
dc.subject | Data | en_GB |
dc.subject | Software | en_GB |
dc.subject | Decision-making | en_GB |
dc.subject | Decarbonization | en_GB |
dc.subject | Democratization | en_GB |
dc.title | Energy democracy: A digital future? | en_GB |
dc.type | Conference paper | en_GB |
dc.date.available | 2022-09-16T09:28:42Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 2214-6296 | |
exeter.location | Graz, AT | |
dc.description | This is the final version. Available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record. | en_GB |
dc.identifier.journal | Energy Research and Social Science | en_GB |
dc.relation.ispartof | Energy Research & Social Science, 91 | |
dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | en_GB |
dcterms.dateAccepted | 2022-06-30 | |
rioxxterms.version | VoR | en_GB |
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate | 2022-07-11 | |
rioxxterms.type | Journal Article/Review | en_GB |
refterms.dateFCD | 2022-09-16T09:26:36Z | |
refterms.versionFCD | VoR | |
refterms.dateFOA | 2022-09-16T09:28:53Z | |
refterms.panel | B | en_GB |
refterms.dateFirstOnline | 2022-07-11 | |
pubs.name-of-conference | Joint Annual Conference of the Science, Technology and Society Unit - Graz University of Technology, the Inter-Disciplinary Research Centre for Technology, Work and Culture (IFZ) and the Institute of Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society (IAS-STS). |
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's licence is described as © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).