Local Renewable Energy Actions in the Washington D.C. Region: Political Economy, Place, Policy and Culture
Date
2015-08-19
Authors
Morris, Jason
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Abstract
This dissertation explores efforts to expand decentralized, neighborhood-scale, systems of renewable electricity production in Washington, D.C. and Maryland. I focus, in particular, on a specific class of initiatives that I have chosen to call local renewable energy actions (LREAs). Often described today as `energy cooperatives', `solar cooperatives' or `community-based energy projects', these efforts, while they are largely nascent and account for only a scant percentage of overall electricity production in the United States, are scattered throughout urban and rural areas across the country. These projects are situated within contemporary struggles to transform the ecological character of electricity production in the United States (and, by extension, the planet). They are also embedded within a much longer historical struggle over the political-economy of electricity production stretching back to the late nineteenth century. In what I follows I argue that what differentiates the work of community-based renewable electricity advocates in the District and Maryland from broader to efforts to `green' the nation's electricity system is a focus on democratizing access to the electricity grid. The vision of proper deployment of distributed renewable electricity generating technologies offered by these advocates is centered not only on a decentralized, community-scale network of electricity production but also a parallel vision of community- scale governance and ownership of that network. As such, this vision represents a challenge not only to the ecological character of fossil fuel-based electricity systems but, more importantly, the centralized, "hard path" organization, governance and ownership of those systems.
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Community-based energy development, Localism, Renewable energy, Solar energy, Urbanism