This project, for the British Academy and in collaboration with Lancaster University, looks at the cultural factors that influence community energy projects.

The project will gather twelve case studies of community energy projects, from different countries including the UK, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and South Korea, to look at the cultural factors that influence community energy. It will ask what motivates people to be part of a community energy project; and how local circumstances affect that project. It will ask how national institutional and political cultures affect the way we produce and use energy, and whether the UK could learn from other countries whose political culture is more conducive to small-scale energy solutions. And it will ask whether these community solutions in turn affect local cultures, perhaps improving people’s understanding of where their power comes from, and what they can do to save energy and cut carbon.

Findings will be posted here and on the British Academy’s site. In the meantime, there’s more on the project on this blog for the British Academy.