IIIEE Theses 2017:34 Small and steady: The role of the town energy committees in the energy transition in Vermont Carmen Valache Supervisors: Tareq Emtairah Ralph Meima Thesis for the fulfilment of the Master of Science in Environmental Management and Policy Lund, Sweden, September 2017 © You may use the contents of the IIIEE publications for informational purposes only. You may not copy, lend, hire, transmit or redistribute these materials for commercial purposes or for compensation of any kind without written permission from IIIEE. When using IIIEE material you must include the following copyright notice: ‘Copyright © Carmen Valache, IIIEE, Lund University. All rights reserved’ in any copy that you make in a clearly visible position. You may not modify the materials without the permission of the author. Published in 2017 by IIIEE, Lund University, P.O. Box 196, S-221 00 LUND, Sweden, Tel: +46 – 46 222 02 00, Fax: +46 – 46 222 02 10, e-mail: [email protected]. ISSN 1401-9191 IIIEE Theses 2017:34 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank all the wonderful people in Vermont who generously granted me their time and answered my numerous questions about their home state. To the volunteers on the energy committees, in particular, a big thank you. You are a source of inspiration and I humbly admit that this thesis is a very imperfect approximation of the complex reality you work with, and fails to encapsulate the energy, drive and passion that you clearly put into your work. Ralph Meima, I am forever grateful for enabling me to have this eye-opening experience. Christine Hallquist, I am in awe at your knowledge, strength and grace. Fran Putnam, thank you for inspiring me to write about this topic in the first place. Your passion is contagious. To the dedicated faculty of IIIEE, particularly to my adviser Tareq Emtairah, to Beatrice Kogg and Thomas Lindquist, tack så mycket for your support throughout the last few months. Philip, you were the best SED supervisor one could ever hope for. Needless to say, studying here has been a transformative experience that pushed my limits and taught me more than I thought I could learn. Much of it didn't have to do with environmental management and policy. Sunshine batch, you are the best change agents I have ever met. Loved, loved meeting you all and I am sure I will hear loads about your great deeds in the years to come. And all those great changes you'll bring about. Schatz, words fail me, so I won't even try. I miss you every hour of every day. Baran, you are my rock. I couldn't have done this without your love, support and patience. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for being there every step of the way. Seni çok seviyorum. Abstract International and national carbon reduction plans and targets have constituted the subject of a copious amount research in recent years. Concurrently, the number of cities, regions, companies and communities that have set ambitious targets for renewable energy and energy efficiency has been growing. Among these actors, rural communities in the developed world and their efforts toward the transition away from fossil fuels have sparked limited interest to date. This thesis addresses the dearth of research on this topic by analysing the role of a group of voluntary town energy committees in the transition to clean energy in the predominantly rural U.S. state of Vermont. The study explores the ways in which these actors are driving the energy transition in a rural, developed world context, the challenges with which they grapple and solutions to improve their effectiveness. The research design was exploratory and employed a triangulation approach based on a review of the literature on socio-technical regimes, grassroots innovations, grassroots energy action and rural energy transitions; qualitative data collection from 24 semi-structured interviews; and the results of a longitudinal survey of town energy committees made available by the local NGO Vital Communities. Findings suggest that town energy committees play an important role in compensating for shortages in expertise and manpower in local administrations, by advocating for behavioural change among local energy consumers and by acting as mediators amongst different groups of stakeholders. Their activities complements Vermont's ambitious renewable energy and energy efficiency regulations by addressing those areas of energy consumption that are not incentivised by policy instruments. However, the degree of organisational strength of these volunteer organisations was found to vary widely, and for their effectiveness to be hampered by volunteer burnout and by the lack of support from local officials and residents. Several recommendations on how to address this challenge were made based on the information shared by local civil society informants and grey literature. However, the applicability of abstract knowledge to the different contexts was deemed to be limited. Instead, the provision of ongoing operational support from local NGOs was found to significantly impact the level of activities and outcomes of town energy committees. The findings of the study could be useful for local volunteers and the organisations that support them to inform future strategies. Keywords: town energy committee, Vermont, local energy action, rural energy transition 2 Executive Summary Humanity needs an energy transition away from fossil fuels of exceptional scope, depth and speed in order to contain global temperature rises below the threshold level of 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century (IRENA, 2017). Said transition requires the cooperation of actors at all levels of society through complementary actions (IPCC, 2014). Global efforts to reduce CO2 emissions through the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement have been accompanied by regional, national and local plans to reduce energy consumption and increase the amount of energy derived from renewable sources. According to REN21 (2017), there has been an increase in the number of cities, corporations, communities and regions committing to targets related to energy efficiency and renewable energy in recent years. Problem definition Due to their sheer size, weight in the global economy and the climate-related impacts they have experienced, cities have been much more widely studied compared to rural areas in the context of sustainability transitions and specifically of energy transitions. In the global south, the transition to more distributed forms of energy generation has been employed as an opportunity to advance socio-economic development in rural areas (Bradshaw, 2010). But less attention has been paid to rural areas in the developed world, despite the fact that they have been the destination of a large portion of the investments in renewable energy installations to date (OECD, n.a.). Studies of Australian and Canadian households (Wiedenhofer et al, 2013, Norman et al, 2006) have shown that rural areas in the developed world are less energy efficient on a per capita basis compared to cities because of higher energy use in buildings and poorer transportation performance. Furthermore, as a result of the long-term decline in agriculture as a source of revenue, these regions are grappling with socio-economic problems like depopulation and reduced human and resource capacity at the local level (Bergmann et al., 2008). Purpose statement and research questions This thesis aims to add to the limited literature on the topic of rural energy transitions in the developed world by zooming into the role that a movement of volunteer town energy committees has played in the energy transition of the U.S. state of Vermont. Three main research questions have guided the study: RQ1: What role do the town energy committees play in the energy transition in Vermont? RQ2: What challenges do town energy committees face and how do they hamper their activities? RQ3: How can the energy committees enhance their effectiveness, given the challenges observed? Methodology Seeing how a reduced number of pre-existing studies on the topic were found, the research design was exploratory. A triangulation approach using literature review, qualitative data collection in the form of 24 semi-structured interviews and the results of a longitudinal survey conducted by the local NGO Vital Communities was employed in order to enhance 3 the soundness of the results and to make warranted inferences. The findings in relation to the research questions were as follows: RQ1: What role do the town energy committees play in the energy transition in Vermont? The town energy committees were found to operate on a spectrum between grassroots activists campaigning for clean energy and energy efficiency in their communities of place and intermediary actors that make up for shortages in expertise and capacity in the resource- constrained local administrations in Vermont. Their activities complement top-down state policy instruments that incentivise cleaning the power mix, distributed generation and energy efficiency with efforts to address demand-side aspects related to energy consumption in municipal buildings and local residences and the pervasive use of single-occupancy vehicles for transportation. In light of an increased backlash against utility-scale renewable energy installations at the local level, town energy committees have limited themselves to promoting those clean energy solutions that have not constituted grounds for controversy. Their level of activities was found to vary widely based on the characteristics