To achieve SDG 7, modern energy resources and technologies (e.g., renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy storage) and innovative new programs (e.g., prosumer pricing and other demand response incentives) will have to be used to a greater extent. To ensure a successful energy transition, however, development of these technologies and programs will not be enough. They must be accompanied by citizen acceptance of the same. This acceptance should not be assumed.
Without close investigation of the ways in which citizens (and communities) may receive, tolerate, accept, embrace, resist, and/or reject new technologies and programs, there is no guarantee that their deployment (and associated benefits) will be realized. Instead, communities, and/or significant sub-sections of communities may oppose – for reasons of incumbent benefits, fear of the unknown, opportunities for side-benefits or alternative agenda advancement, or something else. In any case, resulting delays – or even cancellations – of new initiatives can be costly, and can serve to leave the benefits unrealized. Additionally, engagement meant to ‘secure acceptance’ can – and should – be a learning experience for technology and program developers, providing them with information that serves to improve their own innovations (and thus augment the benefits of the same). Thus, there are many reasons for purposeful society engagement when deploying sustainable energy transition infrastructure projects.
I have two projects underway in this area:
i) Siting Ontario energy projects
I am developing my understanding of – and continuing to follow the ongoing discussions around – decision-making regarding hosting of new sustainable energy infrastructure (e.g., solar, wind, and pumped hydropower facilities; battery storage locations; battery manufacturing locations; etc.) across Ontario (Canada). The entire lifecycle includes technological development, community discussions, tendering processes, construction practices, commissioning activities, and energy/product delivery.
This work involves ‘tracking’ projects – including, for instance, those recently approved and those forthcoming. Identifying how peers have highlighted key variables – e.g., Susskind et al in the United States -- has been inspirational in this regard. The focus is on the breadth of stakeholders involved in each project, as well as the associated ‘flows’. I aim to bring them together in project-specific system maps – that is, actors as well as connections among actors in terms of authority, influence, information, and money. I anticipate these maps will also have both temporal and spatial dimensions, recognizing the broad reach of these kinds of issues.
I think this work lends itself to collaborative work with others – identification of new projects and subsequent collaborative investigation; co-creating frameworks and associated theory-building; comparisons of case-studies across borders; etc.
ii) Canadian householders’ energy perspectives
Building upon work led by Dr. Chad Walker (Dalhousie University), when he was an AMTD Scholar at the University of Waterloo, I am working with colleagues at analyzing responses to the Canada-wide survey (n=941) we executed in 2022. Building upon recent publications in Energy Reseach & Social Science and Oxford Open Energy, I will be presenting some additional insights from the survey at the 2024 International Sustainability Transitions Conference in Oslo, Norway (17-19 June). More specifically, the paper to be presented there – entitled, ‘Prospects for energy transitions in Canada: Householders’ interests in generating, coordinating, and trading energy at the local level’ – scrutinizes seven variables (geographic, socio-demographic, and attitudinal) to try to identify sub-populations within Canada that appear particularly ‘ready’ or alternatively ‘resistant’ to engaging in local-level activity that could serve to accelerate the Canadian sustainable energy transition. I am happy to share further information about this paper if interested.
After the conference, I plan to regroup with my co-authors to see how we might want to take the insights we presented in that paper further forward in a journal article submission. And while that might be ‘the end’ (at least for me) of my analysis of those data, the experience has certainly whetted my appetite (or, perhaps more accurately, re-activated those research interests – see, for instance, earlier collaborative work like that presented in this 2003 article) for more of the same.
Finally, as an aside (in the sense that it is not strictly, ‘this particular project’, though I mention it here, because it is a related theme), let me add that earlier (pre-pandemic) work we did working to understand the attitude-to-action progression on energy efficiency activities in households (more specifically, do householders, after getting energy advice through an energy audit, actually follow-through with action in their home – ongoing behavioural and/or one-off physical adaptations – and then reduce and/or shift home energy use?) will, I anticipate, soon be published on the University of Waterloo’s repository. I will note it here when that has been done. ... Again, this is a signal of ongoing interests in this area.
