Energy Research & Social Science最新文献

China is recognised as the leading country in the green energy transition. Different from the literature that emphasises the role of the powerful central state, this article reveals how China's green energy strategies and policies can also be reshaped by local dynamics. Based on ethnographic research in 2022 and interviews with local officials and villagers, this article interrogates the building of ‘the world's largest desert photovoltaic (PV) power base’ in Dalad, an Inner Mongolian county in northwest China. The article makes two arguments. First, the base project should be seen as a product of what I term ‘growth-driven environmentalism’, which characterises the local state's mediation between the top-down energy strategies and the bottom-up developmental needs. Second, while the base project may be viewed as a successful climate action in its own right, it obscures the concurrent acceleration of coal-based industrial growth and entrenches the energy-based development model in Dalad. This article offers a theoretical contribution to our understanding of the role of the local state in reconstructing and reshaping the green energy transition, alongside the powerful central state, and suggests that understandings of the global green energy transition must step past the macro picture to understand what is on the ground.

The understanding of the political economy of energy transitions in lower-income African countries is little developed. A focus on coalitions has emerged as a promising approach, but it was largely developed based on experiences from higher-income countries. This article has two interrelated purposes. First, it explores and develops the coalition approach to the study of the prioritisation between energy sources in lower-income countries by combining it with a political settlement framework that has been adapted to analysing energy transitions. Secondly, it researches the promotion and implementation of non-hydro renewable energy in mainland Tanzania as a case. The article covers the period from 2008, when the first potent coalitions around private non-hydro renewable energy emerged, up until today. Until recently, these coalitions were overtaken by stronger coalitions around state-owned gas and hydropower. Only with a new president and administration in power and a donor that was pragmatic with regard to state ownership did a large-scale solar plant materialize. Based on the Tanzanian example, the article argues first, that large-scale energy projects are of such importance politically that the analysis of coalitions at the sector level must take into account how these coalitions are embedded in a country's broader distribution of power. Secondly, that for renewable energy policies and projects to get implemented they must fit with the priorities and ideas about broader development held by a country's ruling political elite. A number of implications for the study of the political economy of energy transitions are further unfolded in the article.

Approximately 760 million people worldwide live without access to electricity, most of them in developing countries, where they also face challenges related to food insecurity and lack of adequate storage for medicines and vaccines. Solar PV off-grid cold storage systems can assist in mitigating those issues as well as bring sustainable development and economic growth to low-income populations, mainly in rural regions. This research presents technologies that provide solar off-grid cold storage to houses, health centers, retail shops (off-grid refrigerators), and small farms or street markets (off-grid cold rooms). At the same time, it can provide electricity access by powering other small electric loads (lamps, phone charges) by using its surplus of electricity generation, addressing several of the United Nations' sustainable development goals simultaneously. The manuscript assesses affordable business models and identifies key challenges and opportunities for deploying Solar PV off-grid cold storage systems, providing a comprehensive guide for policymakers, investors, and stakeholders involved in sustainable development and off-grid electrification in developing countries.

This article revisits the topic of energy materiality against the backdrop of Russia's war on Ukraine. It examines how views on energy materiality have had to change considering the war; how historical, political science/IR, anthropological, and geographical approaches to war and energy systems may provide insights into the continuities and discontinuities in energy materialities facing Europe and the rest of the world; and what research agendas in this space could look like moving forward. A war that was unexpected by many has led to many unexpected outcomes, foremost a remarkable degree of adaptability in those places dependent on the energy supply and value chains impacted by the conflict. Nevertheless, from issues ranging from climate change to fertilizers—therefore, truly global in scope—this war has wide-ranging implications for energy materiality, and how social scientists may seek to understand it.

The achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 7 ‘affordable and clean energy for all’ is incomplete with 1.8 billion people worldwide still dependent on biomass for cooking, with detrimental effects on health, well-being and environment. The situation is especially acute in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study explores cooking transition narratives in the Tanzanian context. The recent policy initiative towards clean cooking from the Tanzanian government provides the opportunity to investigate the main actors and perspectives that set the scene for clean cooking, and justice implications. Drawing on interviews with relevant stakeholders and analysis of key strategic documents we find that the current narratives highlight technical, financial and environmental dimensions, but has little emphasis on the end-users. This provides limited understanding of the practices that underpin cooking, and people's ability to transition to clean cooking technologies. In the future, there is a need to consult the end-users to ensure a successful, just and sustainable transition.

Companies increasingly disclose climate information via voluntary frameworks and emerging mandatory reporting regimes. However, corporations remain large contributors to the increase of global CO2 emissions. Researchers have identified major flaws in corporate climate reporting, yet a more fundamental critique is necessary to understand climate reporting's potential and limitations for decarbonizing the economy. The dominant approach in current polycentric, multi-level, and transnational climate governance is soft climate governance. This article presents a critical discussion of disclosure as a tool of soft climate governance and argues that a climate disclosure regime has spread across the global economy. Though subtle and hard to grasp, this regime is powerful in normalizing corporate climate disclosure across countries and industries. It constitutes a distinct social construction and offers companies two resources: a business-compatible theory of change and a structured climate governance approach. Through an in-depth qualitative analysis of ten companies from Germany, Brazil, and the United States, this article conceptualizes climate disclosure as a formalized practice of valuation. While successful in translating climate change into business language, the climate disclosure regime currently does not enable a rapid transformation of the economy. The article offers an innovative explanation for the limited effects of climate disclosure on reducing corporate greenhouse gas emissions, but avoids a destructive critique that dismisses climate disclosure as mere greenwashing activity. Simultaneously, it counters naïve illusions that more transparency, better standards, and the right performance indicators will solve the “wicked problem” of climate change.

Energy poverty is a growing global concern. This paper aims to investigate the role of poor mental health as a risk factor for energy poverty using longitudinal data from Australia. The study examines the direct effects of mental health on energy poverty and explores potential mechanisms involving saving behavior, gambling, and social trust. The findings, which account for the endogeneity of mental health, suggest that poor mental health increases the likelihood of being in energy poverty. Furthermore, saving behavior is a mechanism through which mental health influences energy poverty. The study's findings imply that implementing policies to support mental health could serve as a promising strategy for addressing energy poverty.

A novel socio-technical niche requires alignment between various actors and institutions for growth. Intermediaries can be crucial in facilitating such alignments, especially where cross-sectoral interactions are essential for the niche's development. Compressed biogas is an emerging socio-technical niche in India that is constituted by actors and institutions spread across the agriculture and energy sectors. This study explores the identities and roles of intermediaries involved in developing India's nascent compressed biogas niche. Based on semi-structured interviews with multiple stakeholders, the study found that the intermediaries carried out three crucial functions for niche development. First, they helped to ensure the feedstock availability for compressed biogas production by maintaining a well-functioning cross-sectoral supply chain. Second, they helped align the regime-level institutions to the niche's needs. Third, they helped in expanding the geographical footprint of the niche. Based on empirical findings, the study proposes an analytical framework to illustrate different dimensions of intermediation for niche development in socio-technical transitions. The framework can help future research explore intermediaries' multi-faceted role in socio-technical niche development, especially in multi-system transitions.

In Ethiopia, renewable energy offers people an affordable, dependable, and eco-friendly power supply while decreasing the carbon footprint. However, delivering a renewable future for the country requires a massive change in social practices and systems of provision. The slow progress of renewable development is hindering the transition to a cleaner energy future. Over 80 % of people live in rural areas where it is expensive to reach them via grid networks in Ethiopia, requiring off-grid alternatives.

Community energy systems, which are off-grid energy systems in which communities play a key role, offer alternative strategies to close the country's energy access gap. However, community energy systems remain underdeveloped in Ethiopia. There is a need to understand the opportunities for community energy and the barriers that hinder its development in Ethiopia, and their role in energy transitions.

This paper adopts an experimental lens to understand the diverse dimensions of community energy projects through how they are made, maintained, and lived. Using a comparative analysis of three multi-method, qualitative case studies, this paper argues that the political context poses the biggest obstacle to the development of community energy in Ethiopia despite these projects' tangible benefits.

The analysis indicates that community energy projects allow communities to be involved in all stages of project development. In every project, communities assume project management responsibilities after commissioning. However, these projects encounter challenges in resourcing capital, managing supply chains, and building necessary skills among community members to understand business models to ensure sustained operation of the systems.

Citizen science (CS) has emerged as a powerful approach to engage the public in scientific research across various domains. While it is documented that CS has made significant contributions to sustainability areas such as ecology, environmental science, and biology (Kullenberg and Kasperowski, 2016), the area of energy transition-related CS studies has yet to be documented in detail. This study reviews existing CS projects related to energy transitions, examining their approaches, methodologies, activities, and challenges. It identifies contributions of case studies to showcase the diverse ways CS has been applied to address energy transition challenges.

There are four primary pathways through which CS supports low carbon energy transitions: problem identification and research agenda setting, resource mobilisation, advocacy for transition off fossil fuels and co-evolution of socio-technical aspects. CS empowers communities, fosters participatory approaches, and generates knowledge that informs decision-making processes, ultimately driving positive change towards sustainable and inclusive futures. CS has the potential to advance energy transitions and needs to expand its integration in energy-related research and initiatives. By involving citizens as active participants, CS not only democratises knowledge but also empowers individuals to shape the future of clean energy systems.

Across the nine case study projects activities demonstrate a strong alignment with the diverse aspects required for a successful energy transition. What is more, in empowering communities and adopting participatory approaches, these CS projects generate essential knowledge that informs decision-making processes, thereby facilitating positive changes towards sustainable and inclusive futures. We suggest future routes for citizen action within the energy transition arena.