Paper long abstract:

The transformation to a decentralized renewable energy system requires the transformation of communities. Increasingly, citizens become 'prosumers' and take energy production in their own hands. More and more citizens pool their resources to start a local energy initiative. In the Netherlands, more than 500 such initiatives seek to reshape the energy system in the face of constraints embedded in cultural, social, economic and political traditions. In this respect, the built environment poses considerable challenges, because of on the one hand the inscripted unsustainabilities in the layout of buildings and infrastructures in general, and on the other hand the heritage values attached to historical buildings in particular.

In this paper we reconstruct the heterogeneous networks of two local communities (Franeker and Zuidhorn) in the north of the Netherlands and analyse their approaches to transform the energy system while accounting for cultural heritage of the built environment. We depart from Actor-Network Theory, which allows a dynamic analysis of collective strategies, and use fieldwork, qualitative interviews, and design studies. The local networks consist of human actors as well as institutions, buildings, energy technologies and infrastructures. We specifically investigate the obduracy and scripts of the local environment, and clarify how this resists change and invites specific forms of energy use and energy generation.

We conclude that for local initiatives to be successful, they have to balance actions to open up the energy system, to create new viable scripts, and actions that involve the local community, to create continuity.