Transitioning to renewable energies: the role of local action in achieving energy justice

I believe energy justice should be every person's right, yet the current UK energy system incubates injustice. Changing this situation is critical, and to contribute to this would be a privilege. My multi-disciplinary academic achievements make me the ideal candidate for this project. I have expertise in qualitative data collection and analysis, exploratory data analysis using Excel and R, and an understanding of modelling principles and applications.

Energy justice is a wicked problem demanding action from the local to the global level, involving techno-scientific, and socio-political issues. Action in one place/time has consequences elsewhere, often involving trade-offs, which is why energy provision and policy must be reframed as moral issues (Sovacool et al, 2017). I would adopt a multi-level perspective (MLP) approach as this would allow for both the multi-disciplinary nature of the project, and the connection of local action and processes to the wider context. This would also allow me to contribute to the reframing of energy provision/supply as an ethical societal concern.

An MLP approach would enable me to examine the regulatory and political environment, in which community renewable projects operate. This approach would also connect this regulatory environment to the complexity of the energy markets. Finally, it would allow me to examine the community renewable organisational forms/processes and the cultural meanings given to energy justice and renewable technologies. My geographical focus would be on community energy organisations in the south coast region, through the University of Brighton's partnership with Community Energy South.

A particular focus of this project would be to explore how the co-benefits of local community energy are conceptualised and can be quantified (Sovacool et al, 2017). Hall and Roelich (2016), make clear that national energy suppliers are unable and unwilling to capture value from more sustainable, local energy provision/supply. They also suggest how business models that capture this value, could do so while advancing social and environmental objectives (Hall and Roelich, 2016). Therefore (following Geels et al, 2016), I will model the potential of community energy business structures to create and capture value under different regulatory assumptions. Next, I will use the MLP analysis to view the feasibility of certain low-carbon transition pathways and the associated community energy structures. Then I would aim to discover how community renewable actors conceptualise energy justice and the co-benefits of energy justice. It would also be important to document how far these actors feel they are capturing value, and how reform might improve their ability to capture value. I would then use the qualitative data gained from the second two stages to re-run the model under more 'realistic' assumptions. This approach would combine intended, deliberate and emergent strategies, more effectively dealing with the overall complexity of this project (Geels et al, 2016).

My project would contribute to the practicalities of a low-carbon transition, one that is fair and achievable. My skills, knowledge and commitment make this a feasible and worthwhile project, which will help bridge the gap between the theory and achievement of energy justice.