Alleviation of energy poverty through transitions to low-carbon energy infrastructure

Abstract

With Green Deals and a competitive techno-economic basis for low-carbon energy transitions, energy infrastructural change is intensifying. This is matched by rapid growth in scholarship on sociotechnical transitions and energy justice, combined in the phrase ‘just transitions’. Yet how can an abstract concern with a normative concept like justice be brought to bear on the socio-technical complexities of specific changes in energy infrastructure? This is an important and timely question to consider in a practical sense, since the energy policy landscape is increasingly focused on a ‘just transition’ as combining decarbonisation and a progressive vision of social equity and justice. Our synthesis review argues that a focus on the alleviation of energy poverty – a condition whereby people are unable to secure adequate levels of energy services in the home – can enable policy-oriented mobilisation of energy justice as an integral component of evolving energy infrastructure. We approach energy poverty as an opportunity to constructively broach issues of justice in global energy policy discourse, not as a catch-all for wider injustices and vulnerabilities. We present a conceptual framework, applied to three schematic cases of energy infrastructure under transition. In and across these cross-sectoral cases, we reflect on scope for energy poverty alleviation.