The University of Bristol has been working with the Bristol Energy Network on how to support local community based energy groups to ‘Maintain Momentum’ and the seminar will link the outcomes of the ‘Maintaining Momentum in Bristol Community Energy’ project to a number of other academic projects exploring community energy around the UK and also to the launch of the Bristol Community Energy Strategy. This is one of the first local community energy strategies in the UK and is intended to further inspire activities locally.
We are grateful for the support of the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute and Centre for Public Engagement and the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) in enabling us to hold this event.
Bristol Solar City Launch Presentation:
| 10:00 |
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Welcome to Bristol Solar City
– James Lancaster, Chair, Bristol Solar City |
| 10:05 |
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Official press launch of Bristol as UK’s Solar Capital
– Mayor of Bristol, George Ferguson |
| 10:20 |
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Bristol Solar City and our ambitions for Bristol
– Jamie O’Nians, Bristol Solar City
– Presentation (.pdf) |
| 10:35 |
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Launch of the Bristol Community Strategy for Energy
– Iris Eiting, Bristol Energy Network
– Presentation (.pdf) |
| 10:40 |
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The West of England Local Enterprise Partnership and its role in the low carbon economy
– Caroline Macdonald, Chair of the LEP’s Low Carbon Industries group
– Presentation (.pdf) |
| 10:45 |
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What are the opportunities for business, the wider economy, jobs and our carbon targets?
– Panel discussion |
Energised communities: Energy at a whole community scale
Introduction to the day and Bristol project background – Professor Bronwen Morgan, (The Audio is not that great, the rest of the talks audio are much better).
Maintaining Momentum in Bristol Community Energy: Caroline Bird, University of Bristol and Jake Barnes, Bristol Energy Network
Despite new Government policy initiatives designed to encourage energy efficiency and renewable generation, green energy policy rarely connects or co – ordinates with community activism . However, in Bristol, local community energy groups were particularly successful in securing short – term Government grants at the start of 2012, with the support of two crucial broker organisations – the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) and the Bristol Energy Network (BEN). The City Council has secured funding from DECC to pilot Green Deal type mechanisms; and European funding for energy initiatives. All of these potentially put the city in a unique position to further develop community engagement in green energy policy. We consider the possible roles of intermediaries as ‘knowledge brokers’ and ‘policy translators’ in the field of green energy policy in supporting the community groups to ‘maintain momentum’ after a burst of funded activity and for the longer term through the Community Strategy for Energy.
Download presentation below:
Bristol, Maintaining Momentum.pdf
Energy at a whole community scale
EVALOC: evaluating impact, effectiveness and success of low carbon communities on localised energy behaviours – Professor Rajat Gupta, Oxford Brookes University
This presentation describes a collaborative action research based approach and emerging findings of a 3.5-year research project (EVALOC) on evaluating six Government-funded low carbon communities (LCC) in the UK in terms of their impacts (on changing individual and community energy behaviours), effectiveness (on achieving real-savings in energy use and carbon emissions) and success (in bringing about sustained and systemic change) on household energy behaviours. Action research is undertaken both on a community and household level, using a variety of research methodologies and survey instruments, including focus groups and community events (community level research); carbon mapping; household level monitoring, occupancy feedback survey and social network analysis (household level research). EVALOC project brings together social science and building science-based disciplines as full understanding of the impact of community-based and community-led interventions in the energy sector, needs not only integration of the quantitative and qualitative monitoring and evaluation approaches, but also an understanding of the social processes of change and their durability, context dependence and capacity requirements.
Download presentation below:
Oxford Brookes, EVALOC.pdf
Community Knowledge Networks: an interactive approach to energy learning – Simon Ross, Marches Energy Agency, with Dr Neil Simcock Keele University
A reduction in domestic energy consumption is considered key to helping the UK reduce its overall carbon emissions. Knowledge relating to energy consumption is important if these reductions are to be made. In the past, successive governments have attempted to ‘disseminate’ information and ‘educate’ the public about domestic energy saving through top-down information campaigns. However, these have been considered largely unsuccessful in widely spreading energy knowledge. Drawing on findings from an on-going research project, we outline an alternative strategy toward energy learning based on community social networks. We highlight some of the potential strengths of this approach, and suggest how and why learning can better occur through interactive processes rather than the top – down ‘giving’ of information. The findings suggest community network approaches to energy learning have great potential, but we also highlight some of the challenges that need to be overcome for this potential to be fully realised.
Download presentation below:
Morning Panel Discussion chaired by Professor Bronwen Morgan
Morning Panel Discussion includes Professor Rajat Gupta, Oxford Brookes University, Simon Ross, Marches Energy Agency, with Keele University, Caroline Bird +
Jake Barnes from Bristol Energy Network.
Personal responses to energy communities
Values matter: the role of peoples’ values in shaping energy use – Dr Rebecca Wallbridge, University of Southampton
The role of peoples’ values in shaping energy use Grassroot initiatives, such as community energy groups, are increasingly seen as an effective means through which to encourage people to adopt more sustainable, lower carbon, lifestyles. “The role of community-based initiatives in energy saving” project seeks to explore role community groups can play in encouraging households to reduce their energy consumption. The social values of both organisations and individuals are an important factor in this process, in both engaging people and orientating their energy saving practices. We will look at the values people attribute to community energy groups, and how these values shape peoples’ energy use in the home and beyond. Specifically looking at how drawing primarily on ideas of ‘money saving’ can act as a barrier to people adopting lower carbon lifestyles.
Download presentation below:
Energy and Co-Designing Communities: Designing a Deployable Research Device – Professor Bill Gaver, Goldsmiths University of London
The ‘Energy and Co – Designing Communities’ project is investigating how an ‘Energy Babble’ device can draw together and reconfigure a number of existing UK energy communities and practitioner groups around ways of talking about environmental issues and practices. The Babble presents a variety of voices (literally and figuratively) speaking about energy demand reduction and related issues, drawn from Twitter, other online information sources as well as messages from the local communities themselves. These are mixed and presented to highlight their diversity and potential agreements and disagreements, with the intention of adding to and unsettling the communities’ existing conceptions and expectations. The presentation will describe the project’s research process including initial fieldwork with energy communities and practitioner groups in the UK, a community engagement event, a cultural probe study which led to a a series of design workbooks that resourced the design and development of the Energy Babble device. The presentation will draw out the relations between design – led research, empirical methods and intervention by way of an interactive system.
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Communities engaged in low carbon transitions: The Energy Biographies project – Professor Dr. Karen Parkhill, Cardiff University:
The Energy Biographies project The UK is attempting to transition to a lower carbon society. To achieve this, key changes need to occur in the ways that we supply and use energy. In government rhetoric, communities are positioned as the vanguards of change and are imbued with increasing levels of responsibility for aiding sustainable transitions. Yet communities are composed of many people, whose aspirations, expectations and obligations may not fit fully with those of the community. How then is it possible to develop community visions for low carbon transitions? What challenges and dilemmas do community members face in their everyday lives and in looking to the future? This talk, based on a major research project called Energy Biographies, will explore a selection of data from one of our case site partners Lammas Eco – village, Pembrokeshire. Based on initial analysis of an extensive qualitative dataset we aim to generate insights into contemporary identity dilemmas through highlighting tensions between expectations about normal living and the potential for sustainable change.
Download presentation below:
Afternoon panel discussion:
Panel discussion from the afternoons speakers chaired by Morag McDermont on the panel is Dr Rebecca Wallbridge,University of Southampton, Professor Bill Gaver, Goldsmiths University of London, Professor Karen Parkhil, Cardiff University.
More Info:
More information on Bristol energy network here and more information about the seminars here.
