Concluding Remarks

Photo.1 Community engagement is a key to climate change mitigation & adaptation (Reference: Gutierrez & Anderson, 2016)

Over the last couple of months, I have discussed on how community contributes to addressing climate change related issues. With a primary focus being placed upon energy, I have found that community involvement / engagement is vital to develop the most appropriate mitigation and adaptation strategies because they are essentially 'the most affected and the greatest contributing actors all together'.

The primary idea first emerged when I wrote my post titled "Conceptualizing Global Climate Change As 'Our Struggle'", yet, I could not give theoretical explanation of the idea because it has recently emerged as social phenomenon. In order to understand these, I made a number of peer reviews on renewable energy development with Germany's Energiewende as a particular example. This is where I encountered contemporary theories that explain the emergence and development of community initiatives.

Among these is institutional arrangements theory that looks into the organizational structure of political economy. As I mentioned in the earlier post, it is a way of describing how politics is structured by non-political traits such as socio-cultural and economic aspects of the community. There are the four types of institutional logics the combination of which comprises the theory; market-oriented system; state-oriented system; community-oriented system; and corporatist association order (Oteman et al, 2014).

At this point, however, I realized that the extent to which community plays a role in developing local initiatives like RE cannot simply be examined through one spectrum like national politics or community capacity. Indeed, what is the best combination of the four logics above to the emergence and development of community initiatives is very different both spatially and temporally. In Germany, for example, the emergence of RE was achieved following nationwide community movement against nuclear power and fossil fuel economy whereas its development has been accelerated by the legal binding force like FITs that the government introduced. Now, the further development of RE in Germany is largely dependent upon how the Big Four compete / cooperate with community power, how they cope with the biophysical constraints in RE production, and the degree of government's intervention. To sum, the degree of community roles in deriving the most appropriate management solution is not constant but changes over time.

Similarily, the incentives for involving community also frequently fluctuate over time (see my previous blog post). Whether their motives are based upon 'sympathy for those who suffer from climate change in developing countries', 'financial incentives to develop RE' or 'grants and prizes for saving energy', their incentive effects often temporal in nature. It is because people do not understand what is really problematic and how it affects their individual life.

Therefore, engaging community in decision-making for climate change mitigation & adaptation (RE development as an example) requires to personalize climate change issues as their own struggle. I discussed how this can be achieved in my previous post as well, with an example of the LCCVP. This is a conceptual framework in which 'local' climate change scenarios are presented with visual aids. This community-based approach helps community members link the global climate change with themselves therefore changes their perspectives. In this way, people start to derive the incentives from their own values to engage in community projects for climate change. The title of my previous blog post 'Think Globally, Act Locally' reflects this idea. Indeed, this transition of individual's perspectives on climate change is a key to sustainable community action to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Photo.2 You cannot dismiss the importance of community in the era of global climate change (Reference: Craig Edmonds, 2016)

To conclude, community engagement in climate change mitigation and adaptation is necessary, yet, its sustainability is achieved only if community members perceive climate change as something affects their individual life. This leads to greater community participation in sustainable way. However, it is also important to note that the degree of the roles community play in developing climate change mitigation like RE development does not remain constant but changes over time. Therefore, we need to pay a great attention to what kinds of structural arrangements of the four institutional logics are required to develop the best possible management solution in climate change policy and projects, at a particular ‘space’ and ‘time’. I hope you enjoyed reading my blog posts over the last few months. Thank you very much for reading my posts and sharing some ideas and questions. It was a really enjoyable journey! Now that I will stop blogging for a while because I will focus on other University work. Hopefully, I will one day come back here and start writing on this topic again! Thanks all! x

'Think globally, Act Locally'

In the last few posts, I wrote some detailed peer reviews on community roles in developing renewable energy. Today, I would like to relate these theories with climate change mitigation and adaptation measures.

In the study undertaken by Sheppard et al (2011), it is argued that most of climate change studies have placed a great emphasis on global and national levels and have ignored community level involvement. It is considered to be a serious problem to be addressed because the majority of the consequence of climate change is primarily felt at local level, such as flooding, drought and freshwater deficit (Riedy et al, 2013) It is applied to the global North-South theory where the South is the most severely affected by climate change than the North. It is due to the lack of knowledge and resources to develop the capacity to adapt. 

At community level, this is more significant because community-level governance is often influenced by the national policy, which does not always consider the heterogeneity of the community characteristics including local economy, cultures, values and ethics (Roncoli et al, 2011). Essentially, good governance considers the local concerns and shared values and integrate them into their local economy. I have briefly discussed the friction between the national and community level governance in my old blog post here. 

The needs for developing community oriented capacity have long been discussed by many researchers. Grimm et al (2008) highlight the fact that more than 75% of the global CO2 emissions are from cities and urban areas. This means that a sum of local emissions is the largest contributor to climate change. Others insist that 'community level is the scale that matters most to decision makers and the community', and that 'the local community is where "the rubber meets the road" in implementing GHG emission reductions or adaptation measures through policies and projects' (Moser and Dilling, 2007). Indeed, they are those who both contribute to and are affected by the effects of climate change. 

The implication of the above is that climate change mitigation & adaptation strategy should be developed and practiced at local level so that individual stakeholders change their attitude. Examples of community action include energy saving, community 3R programme, community power development, or community movement against certain industries such as deforestation for land, fossil fuel and mining activity. However, their attitude is not simply changed by 'paper' or 'news', about the recent IPCC report, for instance. It is often the case that people tend to lose interest in climate change after showing an immediate response to a particular event (AccuWeather, 2014). 

Interestingly, one study suggests that neither negative nor positive media reports on climate change have only a short-term effect on public opinion (Anderegg et al, 2014). They measured the frequency of people scouring the internet for climate change related information. The graph below shows the transition of the public interest, with a blue line representing global warming and a red one climate change. 

Figure.1 shows a time-scale change in relative interest in climate change issues based upon the statistical data. Red represents global warming and blue climate change (Reference: Anderegg et al (2014))

Obviously, the data above is only based upon the statistical data of internet search, yet, it highly suggests that people are inclined to constantly gain and lose interest in climate change. This can be a serious constraint when it comes to developing community-based adaptive measure. This reflects the finding I have discussed in the earlier post that the community engagement is primarily 'voluntary' and therefore can easily deteriorate after a certain length of time unless their motivation is maintained. 

Furthermore, the study conducted by Leviston et al (2011) reveal the fact that a large proportion of the community in Australia does not even believe in climate change, which prevents them from making efforts to agree with climate change adaptation. Others may believe that climate change is happening but does not fully accept the need to respond urgently (Riedy et al, 2013). 

Based upon the argument above, what I think is required to engage community is essentially to change their perspectives because that is how community engagement can become 'sustainable'. In the study by Sheppard et al (2011), they suggest a series of requirements to improve 'a process for building both awareness and capacity for developing climate change solutions at the community level'. Here, we have a set of general criteria that has been distilled from seminal literature review on this topic (Moser and Dilling, 2007), as follows:

• an engaging, accessible process;
• understandable information;
• salient information for local stakeholders and decision-makers (i.e. linked to things that people can identify with and which they care about);
• appropriate affective responses that are personally relevant and motivating;
• salient information for local public and decision-makers (i.e. linked to things that people can identify with and which they care about) (Sheppard et al, 2011)

Essentially, the above criteria emphasizes the importance of providing sufficient & accessible knowledge and resources and appropriate communication. These are then integrated into the following three requirements:

1. Bring the climate change information down to the local level and engage local stakeholders in the process
2. Use holistic scenarios which combine multiple aspects of climate change, for instance: a broad range of scenario drivers; impacts and responses; and both adaptation and mitigation strategies
3. Use visual tools to maximize interest and engagement, achieve rapid learning, and foster public interaction with the emerging action plans and solutions (Sheppard et al, 2011)

As you can see, these are all theoretical explanations about how community develops the capacity. To give a more insight into the theory, I would now like to introduce 'the Local Climate Change Visioning Project (LCCVP)', which was conducted in British Columbia. The project has two primary objectives. The first goal is to develop 'a coherent framework and prototype process to localize, spatialize, and visualize climate change effects and policy responses at a neighbourhood or community level, i.e. in the community’s ‘backyards’, looking out as far as 2100 (Sheppard et al, 2011). The second is to examine how this framework can be utilized to develop 'a holistic and plausible set of alternative futures, in order to build awareness and capacity within the community by making explicit links between local action and global change' (Sheppard et al, 2011).

There are two components of the framework, namely, a scenario ‘‘cube’’ (Figure.2) and a new type of "participatory visioning process" which integrates 2-4D visualisation tools (Figure.3-5) to represent the scenarios to the local community (Shaw et al, 2009; Sheppard et al, 2011). The scenario cube is basically a 3D cube that integrates a spectrum of four distinct emission, impacts, response scenarios or tiers, over a range of three distinct time periods, across a spectrum of distinct landscape types or case study communities (Sheppard et al, 2011). This helps understand the effects of climate change in different spectrum, and clarify what combination of mitigation and adaptation measure is the most appropriate for what purposes. This is particularly useful for local community decision-makers in developing their policies. 

Figure.2 shows a conceptual framework of the cube scenario (Reference: Sheppard et al, (2011)). 

By contrast, participatory visioning process is a system which helps integrate 'existing local climate change studies and engages climate scientists, local experts, and community stakeholders in a local working group; their role is to help fill key data gaps, develop final scenarios, and advise on visualisation preparation' (Sheppard et al, (2011) Figure.3 below is a flow chart that shows how the system is processed. Basically, the system produces a visual representation of the consequence of climate change. The 3D and 4D examples are shown in Figure.4 and 5 below. 

It conveys a strong message to individual viewers, and I think it helps them not only understand the consequence of scenarios described in the cube model but also conceptualize climate change as something that matters their personal life. This is an essential element of both attracting and sustaining community engagement in climate change mitigation & adaptation because their incentives are fundamentally coming from their own. This relates to my earlier blog post titled 'Conceptualizing Global Climate Change As 'Our Struggle' here. 

Figure.3 is a flow chart that explains the process of participatory visioning process (Reference: Sheppard et al, 2011)

Figure.4 shows a three dimensional visualization of statistically downscaled data for snow pack in Greater Vancouver’s Northshore mountains, showing April 1st median snowline in

2000 (current conditions on right) and 2100 (Reference: David Flanders (CALP) and Environment Canada in Sheppard et al, (2011)

Figure. 5 shows a four dimensional visualisations of Scenarios 1–4 in South Delta, BC (from top left to right, to bottom left to right). (a) Scenario 1 illustrates more frequent flooding and abandonment of houses in 2100; (b) Scenario 2 shows a berm as an adaptation strategy in 2100; (c) Scenario 3 includes incremental retrofits of raised housing and solar panels in 2100; (d) Scenario 4 depicts more rapid retrofitting and low-carbon redevelopment with energy- and food-producing clusters, resilient to projected impacts, in 2050. (Reference: David Flanders, CALP/DCS/UBC in Sheppard et al, (2011)

Some critics argue that uncertainty is often involved in running scenarios because the regional climate and consequences does not always result from their own action but are also largely influenced by the global scenarios. Thus, it is difficult for community to assess the choices in responding to climate change (Sheppard et al, 2011). Nonetheless, uncertainty is something that always exists in science, like shown in various climate change scenarios stated by IPCC (2015). This implies that the accuracy of scenario should not deter all the possible choices community is given. Instead, Gardner et al (2009) insist that community should be honest with uncertainty but try to simply it by indicating 'what is common to the different scenarios and projections, and by drawing comparisons to uncertainties in other areas'. They argue that it can be useful to present action in response to climate change as a risk management issue, rather than implying that climate change is “proven” (Gardener et al, 2009). In this way, the scenarios described above can be an useful tool for building awareness and capacity for behaviour change from their own, policy development, and decision-making in the community. 

To conclude, community engagement is essential in climate change mitigation and adaption because they are the most affected as well as the contributing actors. However, simply raising awareness is not enough to sustain their engagement. It is concluded that more community-based approach with a conceptual framework exemplified in the LCCVP is needed. Although uncertainty in climate change scenarios makes it impossible to draw a full picture of local scenarios, it still helps develop and maintain community engagement by communicating the knowledge and limitation effectively. The important thing is to foster the individual sense of concerns over climate change so that the incentives to act against the issue are derived from their own. This concept is also discussed in the case of renewable energy development I blogged about earlier. Yes, 'think globally, act locally' is what we all need in addressing the global climate change. I hope you now see the evolution of my blog in discussing the roles of community over time. Any comment or questions are welcome as always! 

Theoretical Understanding of Energy Transition in Germany Part 4 (Final) - Critical Reviews on Germany's Energiewende

Over the last couple of months, this blog has placed a primary focus on what roles community plays in renewable energy development, taking Germany as an example. As discussed earlier, community power is highly associated with the emergence of RE projects whereas its development is considered to be accelerated through the state's involvement. This is attributed to the fact that a small-scale business cannot compete with big utility companies which both benefit from economies of scale and the possession of key infrastructure such as grid systems. What I have realized through examining their development is that there are two distinct meanings of community power. First is 'multiple individuals pooling resources (such as space, money, and skills) in order to mutually benefit from a shared renewable energy project', which is generally accepted as a definition of community power (Sustainable Enterprises Media, 2016). Whether the power produced by renewables is sent to the grid in long distance or used on site to offset electricity usage, community power generation is locally owned and collectively operated. The second is more of political power which can influence the energy policy of the entire nation. In this post, I would like to share my reviews on this topic with the findings above.

Photo.1 (Reference: Friends of the Earth Europe, 2013).

As I have already discussed in earlier posts, community renewable energy initiatives began to emerge in many parts of Germany when anti-nuclear movements become dominant in 70s - 80s (National Geographic, 2015). One of the most famous examples is the abandonment of the construction of a nuclear power plant in Wyhl near Freiberg (Details described in my old post here). Their collective value against nuclear power turned the locals to become publicly active enough to keep demonstrating against the plan (National Geographic, 2015). The movement spread across nationwide, which gradually formed a political party, known as 'Green Party' in 80s. This certainly reflects the second definition of community power I have mentioned at the beginning. Essentially, Germany's long history of green politics including relatively earlier FIT introduction and extensive financial support for RE is consolidated by the power of community.

Todays, their political power is strong enough to further accelerate the country's green movement, including the recent decision to phase out nuclear power plants following the Fukushima disaster despite the ruling parties were primarily pro-nuclear (Major Economies and Climate Change, 2014). With the climate change negotiation going for a couple of decades, there is also a huge pressure to decarbonize the nation by diverting the investment on conventional energy system such as domestic lignite and other imported fossil fuels, which are dominantly managed by big utility comapnies. This has come with the further growth of community RE since 2000 when Renewable Act, which is known as a new FIT system, was implemented. For instance, half of wind energy is produced by individuals / communities or wind cooperation.

Nevertheless, large utility companies would not just let community energy initiatives keep going. For example, Vattenfall, is the Swedish state-owned company that recently started investing on a large-scale offshore wind projects (Vattenfall, 2015). They used to be a primary exploiter of lignite (and still are), yet, the public interest in clean energy has encouraged them to embark on the completely new strategy, the energy mix (National Geographic, 2015). In April 2015, 80 offshore wind turbines in the North Sea were inaugmented, called 'Dantysk Project (Dantysk Offshore Wind, 2015). It is expected to produce enough renewable electricity that supports the households, subway and tram lines in Munich by 2025 (National Geographic, 2015). Similarly, E.ON, the other utility company now divide their business area into the one devoted to contemporary energy such as coal, gas and nuclear and the other to renewables (Reuters, 2014). Despite half of the current wind energy is owned by individual households or community cooperation, it is expected that the share of these large companies will rise in the future (Oteman et al, 2014).

Photo.2 Offshore wind turbines in Germany's North Sea (Reference: NHST Media Group, 2015).

This seems, at least to me, a positive outlook to Germany's RE development because large companies have greater funds to develop RE more quickly than community power. However, some critics argue that it could price out community energy companies of the market. Considering the temporality of FIT systems, the future climate seems rather dim to small-scale projects because they do not have economies of scale like big companies. The consequence is either relinquishing of business or mergence with the Big Four. I suppose the former is less likely because energy is a type of staple product that needs to be constantly produced and distributed to consumers. By contrast, the latter case is more viable and acceptable if the quality of services and the electricity prices remain at reasonable levels. This raises a question that whether community 'ownership' is a prerequisite for community energy project management.

As I insisted in the earlier post, I believe that community ownership is essential at the beginning of community initiatives, yet, this may not be the case in the long term. It reflects the argument made by Harvey and Reed (2007) that the participation of community in the development of local initiatives is necessary but the community management is not. In other words, community should have the right to decide how projects will be managed even including the decision to let non-community-owned companies to operate the facility (Newton, 2013). I assume that It is because ownership is rather symbolic than something functional. This means that the difference between community-owned and non-community-owned projects is a stronger psychological effect of the project on the locals to become proud of themselves achieving their own initiative. The only reason why I insist that ownership is essential at the onset of project is that Germany has a strong sense of community and the grassroots movement is very typical (National Geographic, 2015), therefore, the incentives for energy projects need to be derived from their own. This bottom-up view is presented in the interview to some German that 'there's a certain rebelliousness that's a result of the Second World War' that 'you don't blindly accept authority' (National Geographic, 2015). This is not to say that government is not trustworthy or reliable but that people are inherently skeptical of and challenge the government. As I said earlier, this is reflected in the politics of community power.

To conclude, community's involvement is a key aspect of Germany's energiewende and so will be in the future. With large utility companies entering the RE market, it is likely that community-level RE cooperation/company is gradually taken over by the former. However, whether the ownership remains in the community or is handed over to outside company is not something we must worry about. Rather, community participation to discuss the future management of their RE facility is more important, so that they feel being continuously engaged. Also, community's political power is inevitable in developing Germany's energiewende over the course of transition in the way that shapes the energy politics of the entire nation. Although it is anticipated that the growth of community RE will slow down for the above reason, their political influence on Germany's energy sector will not be dismissed. If you have any thoughts please don't hesitate to share them with me here!

Theoretical Understanding of Energy Transition in Germany Part 3 - Future of Germany's energiewende

Last week, I discussed four institutional arrangements theories that can explain how community initiative emerges and develops. In Germany, it is a combination of community- and state-oriented system where the former plays a fundamental role in initiating community RE projects whilst the latter is a key to expanding the scale of the RE project into national level. Today, the country produces about a quarter of its energy through RE (Oteman et al, 2014). This has contributed to both increased energy security and global climate change mitigation significantly. However, there are a number of constraints in further developing RE in Germany because of the issue of storage capacity (Energy Transition, 2015). In this post, I shall examine how the country will address the problem to further develop its Energiewende.

To begin with, let me define the key term. Storage capacity refers to the capacity of energy being stored for a certain length of time until utilized (Gawel et al 2015). In Germany, storage systems only meets 1h of demand today (Gullberg et al, 2014). The implication of this to Germany's RE is that Since wind and solar power, which dominates Germany's installed capacity of RE, only produce electricity when wind blows or the sunlight is available, there is a significant gap in the amount of production during the day. When both are unavailable, electricity shortfalls can occur, causing massive destruction not only to domestic individual life but also to industrial activities. Germany used to consider nuclear power as a means of combating the shortages before the Fukushima disaster, yet, they decided to complete demolition of nuclear power plants by 2020, reflecting a strong public opinion against the supposedly dangerous, risky energy source  (Gullberg et al, 2014).

Photo.1 Pumped-storage facility in Germany (Reference: Energy Transition, 2015)

Technically, storage capacity can be increased using batteries, hydrogen, methane, compressed air and pumped-storage hydropower. However, these are generally inefficient and very expensive therefore not cost-effective (Gullberg et al, 2014). I think it is true that investing in these costly technology regionally would do nothing but leave a significant debt. Nevertheless, Germany recently embarks on a novel strategy that could resolve their problem, namely, international cooperation in electricity exchange with Norway (Gullberg et al, 2014).

Norway is known for its extensive installation capacity of hydroelectricity due to its geomorphology (Gullberg et al, 2014). In fact, the country's electricity sector is already almost completely dependent upon hydropower therefore produces almost no GHG emissions (Statkraft, 2015). Obviously, the country does not need to further develop RE considering the fact that they are fully functioned by hydropower. However, since there is still a great potential for Norway to expand the system, other European countries perceive the nation as 'green battery', meaning they are able to store energy produced by RE in hydropower (Gullberg et al, 2014). Basically, Norway pumps water from a lower elevation to a reservoir at a higher elevation using electricity produced from RE In Germany. Then, this low-carbon electricity can be stored and released to produce electricity to sell back to Germany when electricity prices are high in shortfalls (mostly at night) (Deutsche Welle, 2015). I think this is a win-win solution both to Germany and Norway - the former for solving intermittency problems, and the latter for making money and compensating for its fossil-intensive sectors - transport and heating. This helps achieve Norway's commitment to increase its share of renewables in the 'energy' mix to 67.5% by 2020 (Note that it's not 'electricity').

Photo.2 Hydropower in Norway (Reference: Celsias, 2015)

Some critics say the cost of installing new facilities particularly international grid connection such as in the North Sea and the one connecting the North and the South is extremely high. This challenge can be further complicated when environmental activists join in to campaign for nature conservation in the area of high-volatile cables being installed. The most recent example of opposition is those emerging to the building of a pumped-storage hydro facility at Atdorf in Baden-Wuttemburg (Gullberg et al, 2014). Furthermore, some Norwegian disagree with the proposal because they fear that development of new grid systems will increase electricity prices and that the use of land and water for pumped-storage will potentially destruct natural environments. The former is very true because energy facility is public owned therefore any cost associated with the development / maintenance will be reflected upon electricity bills (Gullberg et al, 2014).

Nevertheless, I suppose that Germany needs to go ahead with the project simply because they have no other choices. All nuclear power plants are now due to be demolished by 2020, and the dirty fossil fuel, lignite, naturally rich in Germany, has attracted a massive public opposition concerning deforestation, pollution and climate change. Some may argue that installing further RE in Germany would help reduce the risk of electricity shortfalls. However, I believe that regional / international cooperation is more important than achieving national energy security by generating renewable energy by 100% because the latter is very vulnerable to regional climate. For example, if anomalous rainy weather continues across Germany even for a couple of days, it will certainly lead to electricity shortfalls in many parts of the region particularly where storage capacity is low. By contrast, if places are connected to each other energywise, regionally, nationally and internationally, this can reduce the possibility of sudden blackout because they can exchange energy whenever necessary.

What I think Germany needs to develop the above system, primarily with Norway, is the following. First, political commitment of both countries is essential in order to attract sufficient investment to develop new infrastructure such as the grid system. As discussed in the earlier posts, the state involvement plays a fundamental role in increasing the investor's confidence therefore ensuring financial backing. Secondly, public debate over the development of the technology is essential to reach an agreement that minimizes the socio-economic and environmental costs of the project. As Gawel et al (2015) perceive the Energiewende as 'a long-term process of transforming a complex sociotechnical system', energy transition needs to come with restructuring societal systems including the change of people's perspectives and behaviours. Thirdly, the distribution of the burden incurred by energy transition should be taken into consideration more seriously. Gawel et al (2015) argue that It sometimes may not be intransparent or in contradiction to the fundamental values of fairness. Indeed, some consider the additional cost incurred by installing RE under the FIT system as a implicit environmental taxation that does not differentiate between the rich and poor. Clearly, it depends on the scale of geography (regional, national and international), yet there need to be some serious discussions over equity at high political level.

To sum, Germany's energy transition in the next few decades need to put more focus on how they cooperate with other countries like Norway to derive a win-win energy strategy. In this way, each country both maximizes and benefits from their potential economically. Some economists may consider this as an example of semi-competitive market, which represents the situation where a fairly large number of companies compete with each other in the industry with slightly different products. In other words, countries produce energy using different technology which is the most appropriate there both technologically and economically and trade it in the international market. Despite electricity transmission causes energy loss over a long distance, I think electricity exchange is still a viable option within a certain geographical proximity. Any thoughts or questions will be much appreciated!

Theoretical Understanding of Energy Transition in Germany Part 2

Last week, I discussed brief theoretical analogy that explains how community energy can be developed. If you have not read it yet, you may find it useful to have a quick read though it from here. To recap some basic points, there are three different ways to describe the occurrence and opportunities for community initiatives; agency-oriented; structure approach; and biophysical conditions (Oteman et al, 2014). Among these, structure approach is considered the most appropriate because the governance of energy is managed through the combination of the following sets of institutional logics; market-oriented system; state-oriented system; community-oriented system; and corporatist association order (Oteman et al, 2014). Today, I will look into the structural aspects of Germany's energy transition considering the institutional arrangements theory.

Photo.1 Energy turbine in Germany (Reference: North East Windmills, 2013)

To begin with, let me clarify some key terminologies introduced above. Hall and Taylor (2006) define the theory as 'the formal / informal procedures, routines, norms and conventions embedded in the organizational structure of the polity or political economy'. In other words, it is a way of describing how politics is structured by non-political traits such as socio-cultural and economic aspects of the community. Oteman et al (2014) argue that the extent to which community initiatives become prosperous is highly dependent upon the degree of significance of each component. As I mentioned above, there are mainly four systems that can explain how initiatives are organized locally; market-oriented; state-oriented; community-oriented; and corporatist associational order. Now, let's explore each of these arrangements theory.

First of all, market-oriented system refers to a system in which the principle of dispersed competition and profit-making market players are the most influential actors (Oteman et al, 2014). It essentially favours larger market parties due to economies of scale therefore the entry of small-scale or non-profit players are almost impossible. Also, this provides little uniformity in rules and policies at local level since the government's intervention is limited. The consequence is lack of knowledge, resources and subsidies which are essential for community projects to be successful (Oteman et al, 2014). This further leads to lowering the availability of funding from private investors. Therefore, in this system, community initiatives are least likely to develop.

By contrast, in state-oriented order, a system is guided by hierarchical control with the government's intervention (Oteman et al, 2014). The advantages are the greater levels of funding, tenders and permission grants in comparison to the market-oriented system. However, it comes with some drawbacks such as little chance for new technology or experimental designs which do not fit into the institutional structure of rules and finance of the state (Oteman et al, 2014). In addition, there is sometimes friction in land use between the government and the locals because they do not always understand community values of land. For instance, if the government decides to cut and burn the part of local forests to construct solar PVs whilst local residents perceive natural beauty as one of the most valuable property of the community, the community incentives are likely to be lowered.

Next, community-oriented system is based on spontaneous solidarity of community actors (Oteman et al, 2014). Fundamentally, the incentives for community initiatives in this system are derived from their own experiences such as deforestation, pollution, security concern, and aspiration for socio-economic revitalization. In contrast to the state-oriented order, it leaves larger room for decentralized policy and local variation that is adjusted to specific circumstances, preferences or dominant ideas prevailing in the community. This enables to develop the local-specific knowledge and resources needed for the projects. Also, whether community initiatives develop capacity are counting upon the strength of the network among the community and other stakeholders. It provides good institutional space, namely, discrepancy freedom of community initiatives to decide autonomously about the design a project and its contents (Oteman et al, 2014). Nonetheless, some of the challenges they must face are limited funding from outside if the network is limited at the onset of projects, and voluntary attitudes of the locals are not always promising and therefore can deteriorate in long term.

Lastly, in corporatist associational order, a system is governed through an institutionalized and organized associational structure (Oteman et al, 2014). It is considered a new hybrid institution where societal roots of shared responsibility and environmental concerns are combined with market tasks such as profitability, security and access and governmental responsibilities (Oteman et al, 2014). This form of governance has already been seen in other sectors, for example, agricultural and housing associations (Oteman et al, 2014). In energy system, institutions are originally developed from community initiatives but are greatly institutionalized into a formal decision making body. It does not need to follow a full corporatist system, rather, it could also lead the system into the one in which state and civil society cooperate together to develop regulatory framework that brings about new modes of cooperation (Oteman et al, 2014).

These four institutional logics are not solely dominating one's energy sector, yet, countries show a various degree of combination of these systems. In Germany, (Oteman et al, 2014) aruge that the nation's energy transition shows the strongest trait of state-oriented system. As I described in the last two post, Germany's RE installation capacity started to increase rapidly once the FIT bill was passed through the Bundestag in 1990 and further accelerated in 2000 when Renewable Energy Act was introduced (Energy Transition, 2015). Until then, community initiatives were very limited because of the lack of knowledge, investor's confidence and funding.

Nonetheless, I think it is important to note that Germany's energy transition did not emerge out of the state. As explained in the earlier post, the key to the nation's oldest FIT legislation is the emergence of anti-nuclear sentiments in 70-80s (National Geographic, 2015). These local collective actions across the nation gradually led to the formation of Green Party, which contributed to introducing 'green' ideas to the Bundestag later on (National Geographic, 2015). This is also regarded as an example of the corporatist association order because the nationwide green movement resulted in the environmental associational structure, which then was formed into the Green Party that is now politically powerful in Germany today. Therefore, the emergence of Germany's energy transition was achieved in community-oriented system and was further developed through the state's intervention.

In the next post, I would like to discuss the future of Germany's energy transition. Any comments or questions are much appreciated!

Theoretical Understanding of Energy Transition in Germany Part 1

In the last post, I looked through the history of Germany's Energiewende (Energy Transition). Based upon the historical narratives, what I would like to do today is to make some literature reviews on community initiatives in renewable energy (RE) development.

First and foremost, let me clarify some basic terms. Community initiatives are defined as 'decentralized, non-governmental initiatives of local communities and citizens to promote the production of particular goods or services (in this case RE)' (Oteman et al, 2014). In Germany, such RE schemes were quickly introduced following the first FIT scheme in 1990 and further accelerated in 2000 when Renewable Energy Act was passed through the Bundestag (Energy Transition, 2015).

Photo.1. Wind turbines in Ockholm Schleswig-Holstein, near the planned start of the new high-voltage power line (The Gurdian, 2014)

In the study undertaken by Oteman et al, (2014), there are three major theoretical explanations about the emergence and opportunities for community initiatives; agency-oriented; structure approach; and biophysical conditions. They share some common understanding about RE development, however, their approach is slightly different from each other.

Firstly, agency-oriented approach focuses on different individual features such as detailed local knowledge, intrinsic motivation and leadership capabilities. It comprises of four sub-components; cultural capacity; organizational capacity; infrastructural capacity and personal capacity. Cultural capacity describes what is considered to be legitimate and socially accepted as sustainable objectives. These are inherently embedded in their community values, and examples include autarky, anti-capitalism, energy security and anti-nuclear sentiments (Oteman et al, 2014). Organizational capacity looks at the position of community RE initiatives within the wider local community. It determines how socio-politically powerful they can be to engage people or key stakeholders to make initiatives prosperous (Oteman et al, 2014). When it succeeds, it creates a sense of ownership and responsibility, reducing the effects of Not-In-My-Back-Yard. Infrastructural capacity looks at the provision of facilities by government or the market, such as grid access. Lastly, personal capacity focuses on resources of the individual memebers of an initiatives such as voluntary contributions, skills, knowledge and leadership qualities, values and enthusiasm (Oteman et al, 2014).

I think the theory is very useful when it comes to describing the characteristics of individual RE initiatives. For instance, Germany displays great cultural capacity of 'green' values, which has been exemplified in the demolition movement of nuclear power plants and fossil fuel-based energy system (National Geographic, 2015). However, it does not really explain 'WHY' different countries display distinct patterns of appearance of RE community initiatives and their degree of success.

Secondly, structural approach looks into community RE initiatives from three different attributes; socio-cultural; economic; and legal (Oteman et al, 2014). Socio-cultural subsystem describes the public perception of energy and the role of community in this and attitude towards experimenting and innovation. This is equivalent to the cultural capacity in the agency-oriented approach. Economic attribute, however, is a very different approach to the former. It essentially looks at the division & allocation of financial and other material resources among the actors or general economic climate (Oteman et al, 2014). This emphasizes the fact that whether an initiative is economically viable and successful is highly dependent on the expected profitability of the project.

Legal attribute refers to the formal legislation that directly favours RE, for example, Electricity Acts, grid access, degree of territorial functional decentralization, structure of the policy and procedures for collective decision-making. It is a critical part that both promote and restrain the development of RE. Arguably, Germany would not have been able to achieve the current levels of community RE without a series of law that favours their development (Nolden, 2013). I suppose it is because, in market economy, large utility companies can easily price out the small-scale community energy companies / associations through economies of scale. It is an example of oligopoly where a relatively small number of firms dominate the industry (Gutiérrez-Alcaraz and Sheblé, 2006). Therefore, there needs to be government's intervention in supply side if community-level energy companies want to enter the industry. What I think the structure approach is significant is that it can be used to compare and explain the patterns of RE development in different countries because of the quantitative economic and legal approaches.

Thirdly, biological conditions fundamentally look into the biological and physical availability of RE production (Oteman et al, 2014). This includes the annual sunlight hours and wind potential which determine the potential energy production. It also refers to the spatial planning of the project such as the degree of urbanization and remoteness of rural regions. These spatial layout is an important physical condition that influences local structure and agency characteristics of RE development. In Germany, for instance, the north is frequently characterized by high wind potential and therefore most wind turbines are found there. By contrast, the south has historically struggled with implementing RE despite some solar panels and community-level wind turbines being increasingly introduced. In fact, it is still heavily reliant upon nuclear power (The Guardian, 2014). Although some cities like Munich have adopted a strategic plan to produce wind energy in the North Sea and feed their electricity demand, known as Dantysk project, to me, the true 'local energy security' does not seem to be met. I guess they also need to develop locally-produced alternatives such as biogas, so that in case the energy transmission is to be shut down or politically targeted.

Among these three approaches, Oteman et al (2014) put a great emphasis on the structural characteristics of the energy sector to give the theoretical understanding of the occurrence and development of RE. They argue that governance of the energy sector is managed through the combination of the following four institutional logics; market-oriented system; state-oriented system; community-oriented system; and corporatist associational order (Oteman et al, 2014). These essentially form a set of interrelated incentives & constraints that influence agent's behaviour and strategies. Here, the extent to which the state, market and associations are complementary to community RE initiatives and offer them 'institutional space' is studied as 'institutional arrangements theory' (Oteman et al, 2014). Halls and Taylor (2006) defines it as 'the formal/informal procedures, routines, norms and conventions embedded in the organizational structure of the polity/political economy', which are reflected in the structure approach. In other words, it describes the degree of discrepancy freedom of community initiatives to decide autonomously about the design a project its contents' (Oteman et al, 2014).

Now, the question is which kind of institutional arrangements Germany has made over the last few decades to achieve the famous energy transition. Has it always been community-oriented or a mixture with the market-oriented system? In the next post, I will further look into the theoretical understanding of energy transition in Germany with a particular focus on this institutitonal arrangements theory. Any thoughts or questions are more than welcome as always. :)

What's All About Germany's Energiewende?

Photo.1. showing wind farms outside the Feldheim village during a visitors tour.

If you're engaged in or once dedicated to research in the field of energy policies, I guess you would almost certainly have heard of Germany's revolutionary movement called 'Energiewende'. The term represents the transition from a fossil fuel & nuclear-based sector towards a pro-renewable energy (RE) system (Oteman et al, 2014). As I quickly introduced in the last blog post, Germany now produces electricity from RE approximately by 27% this year, with half of them being privately owned by individuals or community cooperatives (National Geographic, 2015). Despite the country is ranked at the top in GHG emissions per capita in Europe, they are also the fastest in reducing their emissions, with an astonishing 27% decline since the 1990 level by 2012 (Figure.1). By 2020, they aim to further cut up to 40%, and by 2050, it is striving to achieve a 80% cut (Oteman et al, 2014). Note that, however, the graph below does not represent how much renewable energy has been introduced in the countries. France, for example, is far smaller in total emissions because of its reliance on nuclear power without much RE being installed.

Figure.1. A graph shows a shift in total emissions in some European countries from 1990 to 2012. Germany is one of the fastest, followed by the UK. (Source: National Geographic, 2015)

So, what distinguishes Germany from other European countries? Why have they been so successful in reducing GHGs emissions over the last few decades? These are some prominent questions I would like to address in the next few posts. 

To begin with, it would be helpful to explore some historical backgrounds of energiewende. The origin of the term traces back to 1980 when the German Oeko Institute published a study called 'Energiewende', which signifies the possibility of economic growth with less energy, therefore nuclear and petroleum can be demolished and replaced by renewable sources (Oeko Institute, 2015). Prior to this publication was a historical movement against the construction of a nuclear power plant in Wyhl, the south-west Germany (Energy Transition, 2015). Near the location is Freiberg where residents were first politically pressured by the authority saying blackouts would be highly likely in the case the plant wouldn't start operating. 

Despite the intimidation, local communities solidified to occupy the construction site and continuously demonstrated against their plan. In the end, the plan was abandoned - the first time ever the introduction of nuclear reactors was prevented in Germany (National Geographic, 2015). Now, Freiberg is known for its one of the highest per capita installed capacity in solar PV panels, with some 50 solar settlements which produce more energy than they consume (Rolf Disch, 2015). They are designed by a local architect Rolf Disch, who actively joined the Wyhl protests (Photo.2 & 3)

 
Photo.2. Poster / handout for Wyhl protests  (Reference: contrAtom, 2011)

       Photo.3. Wyhl protesters with a banner & placards  (Reference: MITWELT, 2015)

In fact, a series of anti-nuclear movement in 70-80s was not simply because of their concerns over safety. It was also about geopolitical tension to which Germany was once forced to be exposed in forefront geographically, namely the US and the Soviet superpowers. The US used to (and still today) hold their nuclear bombs in West Germany against the former, and that was what agitated against nuclear demolition nationwide. It is still an ongoing debate in the country as the recent decision to increase the US's atomic weapons in Germany in spite of the 2009 parliamentary decision to gradually withdraw them - completely against the will of the citizens (Washington's Blog, 2015).

The following was the emergence of the Germany's Green Party advocating for pacifism and opposition to nuclear power plant (National Geographic, 2015). In 1983, first Green representatives won the election for the Bundestag, Germany's national parliament. It was one of the socio-political milestone in Germany that has constituted what the country looks like today. After the 1986's Chernobyl disaster, their influence has become inevitable.

In 1990 when Germany became reunified after the Soviet collapse, a first feed-in tariff (FIT) bill was passed through the Bundestag (Energy Transition, 2015). However, it was not until 2000 when the system started to fully exert a potential force. Hans-Josef Fell (Photo.4), who has been one of the most influential Green Party politician was a key person. He used to be a member of the City Council in Hammelburg before he joined the Party, and helped the council pass an ordinance that ensures the municipal utility to guarantee the payment to any renewable energy producers to more than cover the installation costs therefore make a profit (Energy Transition, 2015). 'The payment had to be so high that investors could make a profit. We live in a market economy, after all', he said (National Geographic, 2015). This market-oriented theory is marked by a number of studies (Nolden, 2013; Oteman et al, 2014) although the degree is highly dependent upon the nature of agency, institution and biophysical characteristics of countries (Oteman et al, 2014).

The success story of Hammelburg then led Fell to ride a Green wave and into the Bundestag where the Green formed a coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD). In 2000, he and Hermann Scheer (Photo.5), who is a prominent supporter for solar energy within the SPP, crafted a law called 'Renewable Energy Act' (Energy Transition, 2015). There are mainly two principles of the Act, first to mandate the FIT payment rates to be based upon the cost of investment instead of the retail rate (therefore above the market price), and second, to prioritize the renewable energy to be fed into a general grid with the guaranteed rate for 20 years.

  

Photo.4. Hans-Josef Fell (Green Party)

 

    Photo.5. Hermann Scheer (SPD) 'Faces of Energiewende'

This has made a number of individuals, communities confident enough to embark on their own renewable energy projects because they can plan well how long it would take to cover the cost and start making a profit. It also encourages active community investments on such projects because of the high creditability that the government provides under the formal legislation. It has been further accelerated by a traditional system of the state-owned bank KfW with €100 billion credit loans available between 2012 - 2017. These are some of the examples of structure-oriented force that explains the emergence of community initiatives (Oteman et al, 2014). As a result, there have been significant rises in many renewable energy production since 2000. For example, wind power generation almost doubled from 2000 and 2004 and still keeps growing until today (Figure.2).

Figure.2. A graph showing the shift in renewable energy production in Germany since 1990 in terawatt-hours.

Nevertheless, the country is not free of challenges. Firstly, since the 2011 Fukushima disaster, public opinion has been against nuclear power, which forced the government to call for a demolition plan of all their 17 plants by 2020 (Nolden, 2013). This raises a question about how the country would replace the supposedly 'green' energy, climate change-wise. Will they be successful in covering the nuclear generation by all the natural, clean force of energy? Or will they increase their import of nuclear / fossil fuel-based energy from nearby countries? There're also concerns about the over-exploitation of lignite (Photo.6), which is naturally rich in Germany, generating 26% of the total energy in the country (National Geographic, 2015). With hard coal mostly imported from outside (18%), the country still relies its energy source on coals by more than 40%. This also causes a massive destruction of Germany's beautiful forests through acid rain or mining activity itself.

Among these is traditional 'Big Four' (E.on, EnBW, RWE, Vattenfall), which have long been politically influential in delaying the energy transformation through lobbying (National Geographic, 2015). Today, they seem to rapidly increase the investment on renewable energy particularly offshore wind, yet, this could in turn price out small-scale community RE associations, which some critics say the another form of lobbying the government to favour big utilities in expanding RE. So, what would that mean to Germany's energy sector if community projects will not manage to increase in number and scale? 

From climate change perspectives, Germany also faces some other challenges regarding two major sources of GHGs emissions - transport (17% of GHGs) and heating system (30%) (National Geographic, 2015). The latter is to some extent locally provided by bio-gas through manure fermenter and direct heating from the sun (Oteman et al, 2014). However, the scale is very limited spatially and it cannot be expanded like a central energy system where electricity / gases are managed and provided by big utility companies. In addition, because of the biophysical characteristics of renewable energy, it's better to produce it where consumed. This is particularly critical when it comes to transmitting energy produced in the windy North to the more industrialized South where far more energy is demanded. The government and utility companies once proposed to build a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) such as the one connecting Bremen and Bavarian (Figure.3). 

Photo.6. showing a mining site for lignite at Vattenfall

Figure.3. A map showing the HVDC networks that connect the North Germany and Bavaria (Source: National Geographic, 2015).

Nonetheless, controversies still remain high because some landowners have rejected it as unnatural disturbance spoiling the natural beauty in their land. Also, the transmission loss of energy (mainly through heat) could be another potential limitation that questions the effectiveness of such transfer projects. Therefore, I think that they need to further expand the existing local-based, decentralized energy system not only to achieve the Germany's ambitious GHGs emissions cut but also to ensure local energy security that helps improve the national energy security as a whole. 

Here, I'm wondering how community energy production and big utility companies can cooperate, or compete well? Of course, what is the best way to provide energy to people is probably different from place to place, depending on the nature of agency, institution, and biophysical conditions as mentioned earlier. In the upcoming posts, I will try to address the questions raised above including the primary ones I mentioned at the beginning (perhaps one by one since there're too many). If you have any thoughts or questions, please feel free to share in comment. :)