Background

National ‘contributions’ have internalised UNFCCC priorities into state energy policies. Yet ‘fossil capital’ is ubiquitous, entrenched in virtually every aspect of society, ingrained within circuits of capital and able to exert considerable influence on the state (Malm 2016: 391). Governments formally committed to decarbonisation routinely minimise, avoid, displace and offset their responsibilities, typically framing the need to retain fossil fuel power as a question of energy security and affordability. In both the global North and South, decarbonisation is proving to be politically polarising. Public opposition to decarbonised energy, whether nuclear or renewable, can come from many sources, including coal-dependent communities and workers’ organisations, and from those affected by the direct impacts of decarbonised power. Nuclear power generation has a long history of public resistance based on hazards of radioactive fuel and the indelible after-effects of disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima (Marshall & Renn 2016). Hydro-electricity generation, may entail forced displacement of residents as well as destruction of livelihoods, water flows and ecosystems. ‘Wind farms’ and ‘solar parks’, along with high voltage power lines (HVPLs) that extend energy transmission grids over long distances, encounter opposition, due to impacts on landscape, health and livelihood. Such conflicts can be used to delegitimise decarbonisation, and entrench the status quo. There are parallels with earlier transitions, such as the phase-out of coal smog from cities; a legislative struggle which required social and cultural legitimacy (Thorsheim 2006). Decarbonisation imperatives have greater reach, requiring the wholesale phase-out of fossil fuels (Stirling 2014).

A Focus on Renewable Energy

The cost of decarbonised electricity is falling in many countries, and in some is now competitive with fossil fuel sources (Stock and Bourne 2017; Sussams & Leaton 2017). The argument advanced by proponents of coal-fired power– that it is necessary to maintain ‘baseload power’ – is increasingly questioned by key stakeholders, for instance in the European energy market (World Energy Focus, 2015).

Decarbonisation is being achieved through new distribution mechanisms such as smart grids and micro-grids. Complete energy autonomy of households is also being explored with various off-grid initiatives, including in Germany and India (Jaeger and Michaelowa 2015; Buchan 2012). Alternatively, governments have sought to reduce emissions through more efficient coal-fired power plants, increased reliance on gas-fired power or via carbon trading schemes that enable emissions ‘reductions’ to be purchased from other sectors or countries.

In this project we focus on wind and solar power. More efficient means of burning fossil fuels and current efforts to sequester emissions are acknowledged to be inadequate by the IEA (IEA 2015). Nuclear power is decarbonised but not renewable. It entails extensive risks and is not the main alternative power source in the three countries chosen. In Germany nuclear power is being phased out due to safety concerns; in India nuclear power is being considered for expansion but faces opposition; in Australia, a major producer of uranium, efforts to promote nuclear power have failed (Goodman and Rosewarne 2015). Hydroelectric power is both decarbonised and renewable but relies on readily dam-able river flows, which may become less reliable under climate change; it is also spatially-fixed and inherently limited. Hydroelectric power is significant in India, generating about 15% of electricity, but entails major social disruption and is often strongly opposed (Chowdhury & Kipgen 2013; Huber & Joshi 2015).

Renewable energy has become the dominant mode of electricity decarbonisation in all three countries, especially wind and solar. Germany is most clearly committed, with renewables supplying 32% of electricity in 2016 and planned to produce 47% by 2020 (GoG 2015; REA 2017). India’s non-fossil fuel sector produces 20% of its electricity and, with India’s 2015 pledge to the UN, is planned to rise to 40% by 2030 (GoI 2015). Australia has a target of 23% for renewable electricity generation by 2020, with substantial increases required after that date (GoA 2015), although the target is politically contentious. In all three countries the question of how to advance the production of electricity through renewables, has been an important concern for government policy.

Comparative approach

The Paris Agreement recognizes ‘nationally-determined’ emissions reductions without creating any prescription for decarbonisation. Public recognition of the reality of human-generated climate change varies across countries (Knight 2016), and is an important element of the national and regional energy transition contexts that we compare in this project. In India, Germany and Australia, energy generation is still dominated by large fossil fuel corporations, and distribution is largely centralised. However, the three countries occupy different places in the decarbonisation process. As a high-emitting post-industrial society, Germany positions itself as a front- runner with its 2010 ‘Energy Transformation’ policy (Goodman 2016). While fossil fuel energy corporations have protected their share of German electricity generation, the project will analyse how the largely community, cooperative and municipality-based renewables sector has been established. By contrast, India is a rapidly industrialising country, with up to forty per cent of its population without access to electricity. The Modi Government’s national agenda aims to increase energy capacity, mainly through coal-fired power, but also through expanded access to low-cost renewables (Santhakumari & Sagar 2017). As a high-income, high-emitting society, Australia is heavily dependent on fossil fuels for electricity, and for export income. The renewables sector is relatively marginal in its contribution to overall electricity supply, although it is more significant in certain areas, particularly South Australia, and, as it attracts increasing investment, the future role of renewables in the generation mix has become more politically contentious. Surveys show that renewable energy has growing public support (Lowy Institute 2014); and this has can be mobilised, for instance, to protect the Renewable Energy Target.

Contribution to the Field

There are wide concerns voiced, among others, by the World Bank (2012) and the United Nations Development Program (2008), that socio-political barriers pose the most difficult challenge for decarbonisation. Despite the importance of these barriers, socio-political studies are neglected in energy studies: Sovacool found less than 5% social science or humanities citations in the field (2014:10). There are book-length studies of the politics of expanded renewable electricity (see Edenhofer 2012; Scheer 2007; Toke 2011; Bickerstaff et al 2013; Sovacool and Dworkin 2014; Devine-Wright 2011). Much of the research is focused on the policy field, discussing the technical capacity of renewables, the economics of transition, and questions of legislative and administrative capacity (Loftus et al 2015). There is a growing literature on ‘social acceptance’ for renewable energy (Ribiero et al 2011), including in Australia (Gross 2007). A Special Issue on the topic was published in Energy Policy in 2007; this identified socio-political, community and market acceptance as key aspects (Wustenhagen et al 2007). Socialised participation and ownership in distributed renewable energy is seen as encouraging acceptance, along with regional planning, as part of wider vision for development and sustainability (Wolsink 2012). The project builds on these studies, deepening understanding of the social dynamics of transition. It engages in in-depth ethnographic study across three contrast country cases, drawing attention to region-level dynamics. It brings inter-disciplinary perspectives to bear in understanding the growing importance of what Spath and Rohracher call ‘energy regions’ (2010), where legitimacy and contestation over energy restructuring is ‘downscaled’ (While et al 2009). It also breaks new ground in seeking broader comparative perspectives across global North and South, and focusing on the social legitimacy of socio-ecological relations of renewable energy.

Theoretical and conceptual frame

Decarbonisation changes the socio-ecological relations of energy and therefore transforms all aspects of society. Renewable and non-renewable energy both put aspects of the biophysical world ‘to work’, literally fuelling social activity (Moore 2015: 9). But they do so in very different ways. Given its extractivist character, fossil energy offers exponential returns to scale, and places a premium on centralisation. In contrast, renewable energy relies on existing energy flows, applying technology to harness them, and offers extensive possibilities for distributed take-up. Being widely available and inexhaustible, solar and wind power can be transformed into electricity at multiple scales and consumed with or without a fixed grid. Large-scale renewables may for instance be privately-owned by diversified energy corporations, feeding into a centralised grid, or by configurations of community-owned or household systems. These arrangements are conditioned by developing technologies, by government policies that plan the transition, by corporate and financial market calculations, and by community pressure and direct initiatives (IREA 2015). That is, they are socially conditioned, and hinge on struggles over socio-political legitimation (not least as decarbonisation itself is a policy initiative).

Investigation of the national contexts and regional ‘hotspots’ is directed at developing a shared conceptual frame focused on the social process of decarbonisation. Moore’s concept of socio-ecological relations, as applied to energy transitions, provides the theoretical underpinning of our research, underlining that society cannot be abstracted from ecology. In addition, we introduce and extend the concept of ‘social legitimacy’, to our analysis of the disruptive and conflictual nature of energy transitions. The foundational work of O’Connor (1973), Habermas (1975) and Olin Wright (1978) shows that tensions between capitalist, democratic and bureaucratic imperatives within the state materialise as crises of, and struggles over, legitimacy. The concept of social legitimacy bridges embedded societal contradictions, in our case socio-ecological contradictions, and the public sphere. Struggles over legitimation underlie forms of political contestation, and shape the horizons of possibility for alternative futures. We draw on the conceptual depth and scope of social legitimacy, to encompass state, corporate and community spheres, and to focus on socio-ecological relations.

Method

The project aims to produce empirical interdisciplinary accounts of renewables and decarbonisation through three interrelated and cumulative methods.

Ethnography and documentary-making: in-depth engagement with three regions. On-site ethnographic research in the regional transition sites will be conducted by for three months in each country in Years 1 and 2. In- country research assistants (IC RAsst) will facilitate ongoing contact with key informants from a range of relevant groups in each energy transition region – residents, community groups, energy installation operators, government officials, corporate offices and civil society agencies, and to collect and collate documentation only available at the local level. Year 1 fieldwork will enable in-depth engagement; Year 2 will allow follow-up research and local workshops to discuss initial findings drawn across the three countries. The UTS-funded PhD student will undertake longer-term PhD research in Kutch communities. Fieldwork will be conducted using participant observation of events such as community forums and liaison committees, corporate public relations events, and public demonstrations, as well as focus groups and semi-structured interviews with at least 40 informants in each country (120 in all). Methodologies of journalism will be integrated with the ethnographic method to deepen participant engagement and enable wider dissemination and impact (as demonstrated in ARCDP14: The Coal Rush and Beyond). Comparative themes will be investigated using data analysis software, yielding theoretical insight.

Investigation: corporate and governmental practices. Drawing on political economy and political sociology, team members CIs Goodman, Rosewarne, Bryant and Pearse will analyse policy frameworks for renewables in each national economy, and debates about them. The analysis of research sites will include documentary material such as official papers from governmental agencies and inter-governmental bodies, such as the IEA or the UN, development applications, position papers from corporate and non-governmental participants, and reports from public inquiries and scientific bodies. The team will analyse corporate and civil society practices, based on investigative analysis, drawing on corporate documents and reporting, business media analysis, company searches, scrutiny of donation and pecuniary interest registers and Freedom of Information requests, and complemented by interviews with key stakeholders engaged in, or opposing, energy transitioning, including industry associations, and focus groups. The data collected will be linked with ethnographic accounts to track how networks develop (Peck & Theodore 2012). Complementing this approach, CI Morton will deploy methodologies of investigative journalism to uncover the complex interactions of governments, commercial interests, regulators, and national energy markets and their influences on policy-making. Investigations will centre on comparisons of decision-making processes, from financing to planning, across the range of organisations engaged with renewables.

Interpretation: policy and public discourse. The research team will conduct in-depth analysis of how the various discourses around energy transitioning frame the social process of gaining or contesting the legitimacy of renewables projects. The textual material will be coded and analysed in NVivo to illuminate the shared and divergent thematic issues and the ways these contribute to, or frustrate, the social legitimacy of energy transition pathways.

Integration of methods: Conceptual innovation will be realised through the interleaving and iterative comparisons of data obtained from interpretative, ethnographic and investigative research. We will undertake theoretically-informed comparative analysis to form new interdisciplinary understandings of how renewable energy transitions are advanced and contested.

On this page

• A Focus on Renewable Energy
• Comparative approach
• Contribution to the Field
• Theoretical and conceptual frame
• Method