Grassroots innovations in community energy: The role of intermediaries in niche development
Grassroots innovations in community energy: The role of intermediaries in niche development
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DOI：
10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.02.008
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发表时间：
2013-10-01
影响因子：
8.9
通讯作者：
Smith, Adrian
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hargreaves, Tom;Hielscher, Sabine;Smith, Adrian
社区能源项目作为支持可持续能源转型的潜在创新来源正日益受到关注。对社区能源等“草根创新”的研究往往认识到，他们在生存方面面临的困难，更不用说发展或播种更广泛的变革了。战略利基管理理论是潜在的帮助在这里，因为它突出了“中介行为者”在巩固，发展和扩散新的创新所发挥的重要作用。本文首次对英国社区能源部门的中介工作进行了深入分析。通过对15个社区能源中介机构的访谈和对113个中介机构制作的社区能源项目案例研究的内容分析，收集了新的经验证据。分析发现，中介机构采用各种方法，试图传播有关特定背景项目的通用经验教训，但试图协调对存在于非常不同的社会和政治环境中的地方项目的支持是具有挑战性的。由于目标和方法各不相同，而且基本资源不确定和不一致，因此在为这个部门建立协调一致的体制基础设施方面面临挑战，这种情况更加严重。相对简单的、以增长为导向的方法，如战略利基管理，在基层创新中的应用需要重新制定，以更好地认识到基层创新的多样性和冲突性。(C)2013爱思唯尔有限公司保留所有权利。
Community energy projects are attracting increasing attention as potential sources of innovation to support sustainable energy transitions. Research into 'grassroots innovations' like community energy often recognises the difficulties they face in simply surviving let alone in growing or seeding wider change. Strategic niche management theory is potentially helpful here as it highlights the important roles played by 'intermediary actors' in consolidating, growing and diffusing novel innovations. This paper presents the first in-depth analysis of intermediary work in the UK community energy sector. New empirical evidence was gathered through interviews with 15 community energy intermediaries and a content analysis of 113 intermediary-produced case studies about community energy projects. Analysis finds intermediaries adopting a variety of methods to try and diffuse generic lessons about context-specific projects, but that trying to coordinate support for local projects that exist amidst very different social and political circumstances is challenging. This is exacerbated by the challenges of building a coherent institutional infrastructure for a sector where aims and approaches diverge, and where underlying resources are uncertain and inconsistent. Applications of relatively simple, growth-oriented approaches like strategic niche management to grassroots innovations need to be reformulated to better recognise their diverse and conflicted realities on the ground. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.