Seminario Sol Maria Halleck

LUGAR Y HORA

Universidad de Oviedo

Wageningen University

ABSTRACT

ver CV

Departamento de Economía Aplicada

Seminarios 24/25

13 de Noviembre

Sol Maria Halleck Vega

"Energy communities: Spatial implications and tackling energy poverty"

Universidad de Oviedo

Departamento de Economía Aplicada

Seminarios 24/25

Abstract

Energy systems are becoming more decentralized (European Commission, 2019), with large volumes of more locally generated power, which is changing energy geographies. Energy communities have been highlighted for their potential to be key enablers to facilitate a just energy transition (Caramizaru and Uihlein, 2020). First, I will highlight three interrelated opportunities and challenges in relation to energy communities and spatial implications. A particular form of energy injustice is energy poverty (Jenkins et al., 2016), which has become a growing concern in Europe. Despite energy communities’ potential benefits including in helping alleviate energy poverty, they have been treated in relative isolation from each other (Hanke and Guyet, 2021). This paper aims to unravel the specificities of energy communities’ energy poverty alleviation approaches and barriers faced. The Netherlands is selected as a case due to a doubling of energy communities over the past decade. A survey is developed to appraise energy communities’ (lack of) engagement in tackling energy poverty with n=196. Using an ordinal logistic model, the effectiveness of approaches of energy communities in addressing energy poverty is assessed. Insights from this study on implications for energy community movements and other (energy system) actors can also be valuable for other countries facing energy poverty challenges. This work also invites to further explore implications of changing space-energy interdependencies.