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Short abstract:

This paper investigates the contending visions and practices of energy justice amongst community energy groups and intermediaries. Three visions of just energy futures emerged from the data with varying degrees of institutional prominence, revealing an uneasy landscape of normative contestations.

Long abstract:

The UK’s Community Energy sector is a grassroots-led movement that tackles the country's decarbonisation and fuel poverty challenges by building community-scale renewable projects and directing funds towards low-income households. Comparative studies indicate that community energy initiatives are more durable and engage citizens more deeply than public and private counterparts. Some scholars emphasise the importance of community energy intermediaries in aggregating knowledge across the sector and engaging in policy advocacy and argue that these intermediaries should be strengthened to support energy justice practices. However, less is known about how community groups and intermediaries across the sector understand energy justice. Drawing on the conceptual lenses of sociotechnical imaginaries and critical niche perspectives, this paper investigates the contending visions and practices of energy justice amongst community energy groups and intermediaries. Through qualitative interviews with 15 community energy groups and 5 community energy intermediaries, the paper finds a core institutionally stabilised imaginary (Alternative Economy), an emerging imaginary that is not yet institutionally supported by intermediaries (Just Transition), and a critical niche perspective that challenges the sector’s claims to represent diverse communities (Beyond Inclusion). These visions revealed an uneasy landscape wherein diverse actors from across the CE sector and beyond are committed to specific understandings of energy justice and are competing to make theirs dominant. Systemic inequalities and hierarchies within the UK’s energy system and the CE sector shape how and why these energy justice visions formed alongside their prospects for institutional stability.