Grid governance; what new roles for the community energy movement?

The variety of activities employed by community energy organisations has broadened considerably. Drawing on Social Movement Theory, we argue that these activities indicate that energy communities engage in ‘prefigurative’ activities; they create in their own environment the decentralized and democratic energy system that they strive for (Van Der Schoor et al. 2016). Such prefigurative practices are different from ‘activist practices’ in the climate movement because they take place as part of an envisaged new energy system. New organizational forms emerge, in which RECs cooperate with other societal partners to be able to develop large projects for wind and sun power. Inspired by the models of Parag & Sovacool (2016), we aim to identify sociotechnical modules for a system design that accounts for these expanded roles and new situations.