Energy Democracy and its Limits

The idea that we can meaningfully put “energy” and “democracy” in one sentence has visibly become more widespread in recent years. That realization follows the increased deployment of distributed and small-scale renewable sources, but also the heightened politicization of energy governance and climate policy, as well as the increased frequency of invoking an “energy democracy” (henceforth: ED). From a niche concept coined by activists, ED has become an increasingly popular political reference used, e.g. in official documents of the European Union. The academic debate and literature on ED has expanded accordingly. The growing ED literature, however, is already visibly fragmented. This invites a risk, which can undermine not merely the scholarly analysis of energy transitions and governance democratization, but perhaps more importantly – the way this transition actually unfolds. We do not believe that a single definition or frame can be imposed onto such a diverse literature, that would not only be vain but also counterproductive. Instead, we propose a structured critical review of the most recent literature, to highlight three understandings of energy democracy, which drive it. “Understandings” are broader than definitions or operationalisations. When people talk about and do research on energy democracy, they seem to mean three distinct things, varying in their ontological status, and the underlying theory of transition and action. ED is thus seen either as: - a process (and a movement), which through dispersed grassroots initiative is challenging energy incumbents; - or it is perceived as an outcome of decarbonization (i.e. the more we move to a renewable and distributed system, the more the energy sector is democratized); - or, finally, ED is a normative goal - something to aspire to - and something in the inconcrete decarbonized future. In this paper, we review the most recent literature, focusing only on academic papers and chapters published between 2016 and 2019 (many of them contain attempts at a genealogy of ED, drawing on earlier activist publications). We relied on Google Scholar and Scopus for the selection of material, and identified four journals, on whose pages the debate on ED is unfolding: Geography Compass, Environmental Politics, Frontiers in Communication, and most importantly, Energy Research and Social Science. Despite the visible attention, the idea of energy democracy is still receiving little critical thinking and raises a lot of questions. We ask about the relationships of the concept with real-world political developments: cooperatives, social acceptance issues. Some problems regarding ED are already visible, associated with mutually exclusive and divergent expectations resulting from the different understandings of democracy. Others are related directly to democracy and democratization. Is there such thing as too much democracy? In parallel to broader political developments, can we also speak of energy populism, and is it undermining decarbonization or on the contrary, a necessary reboot of the governance system we inherited from the 20th century?