1. What role for small-scale energy?
Understanding the value of challenging large-
scale lock-in
Iain Soutar
University of Exeter
April 2013

2. Outline
 Context: the energy challenge
 the growth of small scale
 Sociotechnical change theory
 WREN: A case study of change

3. The big three challenges
 Emission reduction targets essentially an energy
challenge
 c. 75% of GHG emissions from energy
 Renewing electricity infrastructure
 c. £110bn by 2020
 Energy security
 Demand as well as supply issue
Scale and immediacy of challenges is unprecedented

4. Several possible pathways
 Whichever path we take will have implications for meeting
(each part of) energy challenge
 Several common themes
 Decarbonise electricity
 With implications for generation, supply network etc
 Demand must play a role
 People as well as infrastructures
 A system-wide approach is necessary
 Technological, economic, societal and institutional restructuring
 Large, expensive decisions
 Energy as a social issue
 Trade-offs inevitable

5. The real energy challenge
 Political-economic paradigm drives inertia
 Regulation favours norm
 Technological and institutional lock-in
 Neuhoff‟s uneven playing field
 Current system unable to correct for externalities
 Alternative frameworks may be
more appropriate
 We can do it…
If we want to
The difficulty lies,
not with the new ideas,
but in escaping the old ones
John Maynard Keynes

6. ELEC OF ENERGY

7. Is small beautiful?
„Small-scale energy‟: to describe infrastructure,
processes and actors involved in deploying de-
centralized energy
 Increasing interest/focus on small-scale energy
 Top down
 Feed in Tariff, LCCC
 Bottom up
 Transition groups, energy activism

8. Is small beautiful?
 Perceived benefits/value:
 Environmental (minimal relative external costs)
 Economic (employment; green growth; resilience)
 Social (citizenship versus consumerism; internalizing benefit
of engagement)
 Costs
 High, though diminishing capital
costs
 Risks (siting, resource variability,
compatibility)
 Possible limitations in scaling up

9. Research objectives
1. How can we start to understand the whole-system
aspects of small scale energy?
(so what is important??)
2. Through what kind of framework can value be
understood?

10. WREN: A case study of change
 Wadebridge Renewable Energy Network
(WREN)
 Target of providing 30% of electricity demand
from local RE sources
 Observing WREN as they attempt to initiate
transition process
 Establishment of a baseline dataset
characterizing local energy system
 Develop understanding of how energy system
evolves, and implications for economics,
society and environment
 Dearth of empirical studies on transition
dynamics

11. Methods
1. Establish baseline of Wadebridge‟s energy system
 Primary and secondary data
 Quant/qual social survey
 Cross-sectional snapshot
2. Establish sociotechnical „narratives‟ as a way of
understanding and communicating data
 Focused interviews with key stakeholders
 Contextualising data
 Situating data in wider system, and alongside wider
societal objectives

12. Indicators, as “thriftily selected data assumed to have a causal relationship with
a theoretical concept” (Vos et al, 1984)
• Resource
e.g. Supply types & quantities produced & consumed
• Economic
e.g. Monetary costs and benefits of supply and consumption
• Social
e.g. Engagement; value-added practices
• Environmental
e.g. Emissions avoided; compatibility with other activities
• Contextual
e.g. Geographic, demographic, macroeconomic
Alignment of indicators with objectives
(income – housing stock – fuel poverty -
Establishing a baseline

14. Indicator
data
Industry
/Technology
e.g. Are
technologies:
Available?
Established?
Effective?
Reliable?
Economics
/markets
e.g. Are RE
investments:
Feasible?
Risky?
Over what
timescales?
Society
/culture
e.g. Is society:
Engaged?
Accepting?
Willing?
Able?
Policy
e.g. Is policy:
Enabling?
Supportive?
Consistent?
Equitable?
Narratives of
domains
Resource/energy; Economic; Social; Environmental
Current energy system
(regime)
Small-scale energy
(niche)

15. Thank you
i.soutar@exeter.ac.uk

16. The value of evidence
 Big energy decisions necessarily political
 Profound economic and social consequences
 What type of evidence is most useful, and to whom?
 Value of evidence may be limited
 Energy is complex, difficult to model
 An optimum pathway?
 Disagreement over objectives
 We can do it…if we want to

18. Socio-technical transition context
 Contexualising within specific contexts
 Theoretical framing
• Technological
development is product of
tech and society
• Co-evolution of
technology, society,
economics, politics
• Small-scale energy as a
„niche‟ – potentially
moving to become
embedded in regime