Local Authorities and Sustainable Energy Innovations: Decentralisation, Institutional Capacity and Civic Participation

英国的能源和政治格局都在发生变化，但到目前为止，还没有分析考虑到这些走向更大权力下放的运动是如何相互关联的。事实上，地方当局正越来越多地参与到可持续能源项目的启用和提供中，与此同时，许多地方当局正在申请并确保权力下放交易。一些学者和政策分析人士认为，通过更多的公民参与，能源权力下放对于确保公众对可持续能源转型的支持至关重要，而另一些人则指出，在提供更好的服务方面，地方的力量更大。本研究项目将通过探索和绘制五个地方当局可持续能源计划，并严格审查它们与中央政府的关系，揭示这两个分散运动在实践中如何相互作用的细节。这项研究具有时效性和创新性。这是及时的，因为根据气候变化委员会（CCC），其工作是监测英国在减缓气候变化方面的进展，英国有可能错过第四次碳预算，因为中央政府对太阳能和风能发电的支持最近也被削减了（能源光谱2015）。然而，与此同时，地方当局已经成为可持续能源方面的一个创新领域，部分是通过创建按照非传统商业模式运营的新能源公司，部分是通过提供以可负担性为重点的供应服务。该项目的创新之处在于，它结合了社会技术转型、政治学和人文地理学的概念见解，揭示了地方当局在可持续转型中的新兴作用，同时也在政治权力下放的背景下探索这些变化。该项目的设计得到了Ofgem、可持续能源中心（CSE）和两名当地政府人员的投入。它旨在定期与地方当局一级的从业人员和利益相关者进行接触，以期就这一快速变化的领域进行持续的知识交流和合作。该项目还旨在使地方当局有机会通过有针对性的从业者研讨会相互接触。在项目结束时，关于地方当局和中央政府如何在实践中合作的发现，特别是关于限制和改进的机会，将与Ofgem，能源和气候变化部（DECC）以及地方当局网络（如地方政府协会）共享。该研究项目的研究结果不仅适用于研究英国地方政府和地方能源的学者，也适用于对可持续能源转型的规模和公民参与问题感兴趣的学者。通过承担和完成这个项目，PI将获得一个宝贵的机会来发展和进一步提高她的研究技能，创建新的网络，进行开创性的研究，并继续她的轨迹，成为气候和能源治理领域的世界领导者。

Both energy and political landscapes are changing in the UK, but so far no analysis has considered how these movements towards greater decentralisation relate to one another. Indeed, local authorities are becoming increasingly involved in enabling and providing sustainable energy programmes whilst, at the same time, many are applying for and securing devolution deals. Some scholars and policy analysts have argued that decentralising energy will be vital in securing popular buy-in to sustainable energy transitions through greater civic participation whilst others are point towards the power of the local in delivering better-attuned services. This research project will reveal the details of how these two decentralisation movements interact with one another in practice by exploring and mapping five local authority sustainable energy programmes and critically examining their relationships with central government. This research is timely and innovative. It is timely because according to the Climate Change Committee (CCC), whose job it is to monitor the UK's progress on climate mitigation, the UK is at risk of missing its Fourth Carbon Budget and because central government support for solar and wind generation has also recently been cut (Energy Spectrum 2015). At the same time, however, local authorities have been emerging as one area of innovation with regard to sustainable energy, partly by creating new energy companies that operate according to non-traditional business models and partly by offering supply services focused on affordability. The project is innovative in that it combines conceptual insights from socio-technical transitions, political science and human geography to reveal the emerging role of local authorities in sustainable transitions whilst also exploring these changes within the context of political decentralisation. This project has been designed with input from Ofgem, the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) and two local government personnel. It aims to engage on a regular basis with practitioners and stakeholders at the local authority level with the intention of on-going knowledge exchange and co-production about this fast changing area. The project is also designed so that local authorities will have the opportunity to engage with one-another through a targeted, practitioners' workshop. Towards the end of the project findings about how local authorities and central government work together in practice, in particular with regard constraints and opportunities for improvement, will be shared with Ofgem, the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and local authority networks such as the Local Government Association. The findings from this research project should be relevant not only to academics working on local government and local energy in the UK, but also to scholars interested in questions of scale and of civic participation in sustainable energy transitions. By undertaking and completing this project the PI will be given a valuable opportunity to develop and further improve her research skills, create new networks, produce groundbreaking research and to continue on her trajectory to becoming a world leader in the field of climate and energy governance.