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Short abstract:

Additive adoption has resulted in ‘hybrid heating’ that uses multiple energy systems. We conceptualize them as arrangements that work in particular settings, as they mesh e.g material, social and economic resources, and feature considerable agency in setting-up, running, adjusting and innovating.

Long abstract:

Energy transitions are enacting new forms of citizen involvement into being. One increasingly common yet hitherto overlooked development in these democratic engagements relates to the hybridisation of residential heating solutions. Recent research on residential heating solutions indicates that hybrid heating is both widespread – e.g. over half of the Finnish detached houses may now have it – and it invites material engagement in and between renewables among detached house dwellers. We examine close-up the hybrid solutions which houseowners’ have set up: how different hybrid solutions have been acquired, adapted and integrated, and how houseowners’ demographic backgrounds have influenced these aspects. Semi-structured interviews with 56 Finnish houseowners display high diversity in hybrid solutions. Most hybrids feature some integration and adaptions and have been arrived at gradually. Our findings highlight the importance of material factors (existing heating solutions and building age) in shaping what kinds of hybrids homeowners acquire. Always configured to function in particular settings, we conceptualise hybrid solutions as arrangements that work, which mesh, among other things, material, social and economic factors and resources to generate locally functioning heating solutions. In this capacity, hybrid heating encompasses many different demographic groups and orientations. From a policy perspective ‘hybrid heaters’ do not form a coherent group to which supporting measures are easy to target, yet it does suggest that users’ capacity to advance the energy transition is broadly distributed, including advanced carbon reduction among frontrunners as well as minimisation of fossil fuel use among those who retain some fossil heating.