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Short abstract:

The talk explores through a case study how a place-based participatory methodology for imagining socio-technical futures can help demonstrate the relevance and utility of responsible innovation as an approach for evaluating the desirability of particular energy system transition pathways.

Long abstract:

Decarbonizing energy systems is an ambitious sociotechnical project, with significant implications for social and environmental justice, given that it will involve transitioning towards systems based on distributed energy generation and new networked forms of system flexibility. It will be a spatially uneven process, creating a range of socio-technical configurations in response to different geographical contexts. Further, its impact on different kinds of community (urban, rural, peri-urban) will be various, as it transforms how energy is produced, distributed and consumed. The relevance of responsible innovation (RI) as a way of evaluating and shaping pathways to energy transition has therefore been argued for. However, developing the principles and practices of RI in ways which translate this relevance into actual application remains difficult. RI has not typically focused on socio-technical systems, nor has it been developed in ways which reflect the spatial dimensions mentioned above.

This presentation explores some potential ways forward for RI and energy transition, focusing on FLEXIS, an interdisciplinary energy engineering and social science project in Wales, UK, and its place-based approach to upstream engagement for responsible development of energy transition pathways. It examines how findings from interpretative risk research and scholarship on energy and everyday life can help design upstream participatory processes that address not only system transition, but also its potential effects on place and on everyday life. It shows how engaging community residents in place-based creation of potential energy futures can enlarge understanding of the local and systemic aspects of transition, evaluate expert proposals, and expand the range of pathways that may be considered by linking the socio-economic and socio-cultural pasts of communities to their energy futures.