Putting visions in their place: responsible research and innovation for energy system decarbonization

ABSTRACT

Decarbonizing energy systems is an ambitious sociotechnical project, and will have significant implications for social justice, given the increasing dependence of societies globally on energy services. Eliciting non-expert values and perspectives to help reflect on the desirability of visions of socio-technical change has long been promoted within RRI. However, RRI has focused on specific technological proposals and visions, and not encompassed socio-technical systems. Decarbonizing energy requires systemic change involving socio-technical configurations that will vary depending upon geographical constraints and community needs in their host locations. Our case study from Wales, UK shows how findings from interpretative risk research and scholarship on energy and everyday life can help design upstream participatory processes that address simultaneously systems, effects on place, and everyday life. Engaging community residents through community mapping explores these dimensions of energy transition, enriching and enlarging understandings of both local and systemic aspects of the energy transition.

KEYWORDS:

• Demonstrator projects
• energy systems
• energy transition
• public engagement
• societal technology assessment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christopher Groves

Christopher Groves is a Research Fellow and co-investigator on the FLEXIS project in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. His research interests include risk, uncertainty, social futures, the ethics of technology and intergenerational ethics.

Karen Henwood

Karen Henwood is a professor in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University and principal investigator on the FLEXIS project. A specialist in qualitative research methods, her research areas span the social science of risk (environment and personal lives) and identity studies.

Nick Pidgeon

Nick Pidgeon is a professor of environmental psychology, director of the Understanding Risk Research Group within the School of Psychology at Cardiff University and principal investigator on the FLEXIS project. His research covers risk, risk perception, and risk communication with a current focus on public responses to energy technologies, climate change risks, nanotechnologies and climate geoengineering.

Catherine Cherry

Catherine Cherry is a Research Associate within the ESRC Centre Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST) and formerly a Research Associate on FLEXIS. Her research interests focus on how social understandings, values and imaginaries shape and interact with efforts to transition towards low-carbon futures.

Fiona Shirani

Fiona Shirani is a research associate in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University on the FLEXIS project. Her interests include qualitative longitudinal methods, time, the significance of imagined futures, and experiences of life transitions, and families and relationships.

Gareth Thomas

Gareth Thomas is a Research Associate on the FLEXIS project within the School of Psychology at Cardiff University. His interests include issues of justice, vulnerability and social acceptability relating to transitions towards more flexible energy systems, and the ways identities and experiences rooted in place shape citizens' concerns and desires for transitions towards a low carbon economy.