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Bridging socio-technical and justice aspects of sustainable energy transitions

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  • Sareen, Siddharth
  • Haarstad, Håvard

Abstract

Sustainable energy transitions necessarily comprise both socio-technical aspects as well as important implications for social justice. However, in existing scholarship, these are mainly treated as distinct phenomena. The purpose of this paper is to outline a comprehensive approach that pulls together critical aspects of both socio-technical development and energy justice in understanding sustainable transitions. Drawing on the strengths of both sets of literature, we argue that a comprehensive approach requires analyses to account for the co-evolution of institutional change, material change and relational change, with a cross-cutting concern for multiple spatialities and normative implications. We then illustrate this approach through three brief case studies of multi-scalar solar uptake in Portugal, bringing out how justice considerations are intricately involved in the practices and politics of these concrete, broadly representative instances of sustainable energy transitions.

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  • Sareen, Siddharth & Haarstad, Håvard, 2018. "Bridging socio-technical and justice aspects of sustainable energy transitions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 228(C), pages 624-632.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:228:y:2018:i:c:p:624-632
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.06.104
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