Graduation Semester and Year

2018

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Planning and Public Policy

Department

Urban and Public Affairs

First Advisor

Ivonne Audirac

Abstract

In context of the federal leadership vacuum in the United States on climate action and sustainable energy development and consequent subnational policy and regulatory variations, the rise of citizen-led grassroots energy communities (GECs) is increasingly considered as a countervailing civic force in the mainstream energy system. However, as grassroots attempts to transform the carbon-intensive, centralized energy system gain in prominence, attracting broad-based support and generating a multitude of social organization and governance models, citizen advocacy, activism and on-the-ground local projects encounter varying socio-cultural, policy and regulatory support structures across urban and regional landscapes leading to disparate outcomes. Yet, the advent of civil society in the traditionally centralized energy system, facilitated by plummeting costs of solar technology, is being touted to carry a transformative potential not only for sustainable outcomes but also to promote equity through (re)distributive justice. This dissertation problematizes the optimism around citizen-led local energy transitions, with the intention of encouraging self-reflexive assessments of civic actions in the energy sector. Taking a novel multi-theoretical research approach to attend to both social practices as well as material (or technical) dimensions of ongoing grassroots energy transitions, the project expands the scholarship on Community Energy from an American perspective. Through a structuration perspective the research opens to investigative scrutiny the local knowledges, practical lived experiences. Then, using a networks (assemblage) approach it examines the claims of practical or technical necessity for retaining the status quo, which implicate local energy transitions emerging from the ground-up and often on terms which are contrarian to the mainstream energy paradigm. Focusing on the geographic variability in policy and regulatory landscape in the U.S., the research compares two contrasting GECs — networks of citizens undertaking their own local energy transitions based on solar technology. The two cases selected for this research are located in radically different socio-economic, policy and regulatory environments within the staunchly market-oriented state of Texas, to examine how policy and regulatory variabilities in deregulated areas of the energy sector impact community action. A greater understanding of these dynamics which unfold across institutional as well as geographical scales, from locality to nation, are critical to enabling an energy future for all sections of society, especially those which remain disenfranchised in the current energy system.

Keywords

Grassroots, Energy Transitions, Sustainability, Community, Justice, Equity

Disciplines

Public Affairs | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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