Sareen S., Girard Bérénice. (2025). Renewable energy communities for energy-poor households : policy mobility challenges in urban and peri-urban European contexts. In :
Dalsgaard S. (ed.), Lautrup A. (ed.), Schyberg K.A. (ed.), Lippert I. (ed.). The cultural complexity of carbon : green transformations in contemporary society. Londres : Routledge, 25-45. ISBN 978-1-003-47866-9.
Titre du document
Renewable energy communities for energy-poor households : policy mobility challenges in urban and peri-urban European contexts
Année de publication
2025
Type de document
Partie d'ouvrage
Auteurs
Sareen S., Girard Bérénice
In
Dalsgaard S. (ed.), Lautrup A. (ed.), Schyberg K.A. (ed.), Lippert I. (ed.) The cultural complexity of carbon : green transformations in contemporary society
Source
Londres : Routledge, 2025,
25-45 ISBN 978-1-003-47866-9
Carbon emission reduction happens through place-specific sociocultural processes that span organizational and household levels. This chapter shows how these sociocultural characteristics are expressed in four manifestations of an idea: pro-poor community solar energy. In the late 2010s, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority piloted the Solar for All scheme, lowering low-income households' electricity bills through community-scale solar plants installed on public buildings and using virtual net metering to integrate low solar tariffs into utility bills. This success led to a state-wide scale up and inspired Eurosolar4All, a European project that adapted and implemented similar schemes at sites in Spain, Italy, France and Portugal. We traced this policy mobility between 2021 and 2023, during the first phase of adaptation and implementation of pro-poor community solar energy projects in four European contexts. These vary from large cities (Barcelona and Rome) to a smaller municipality (Almada) and a peri-urban federation of small municipalities (Coeur de Savoie). We show how the sociocultural constitution of carbon emission reduction is expressed in the first policy mobility of adapting a scheme from the United States to European countries and in the second policy mobility of its implementation at local and regional levels by institutional intermediaries engaging diverse targeted households.
