Energy transition and society: a socio-technical challenge

Wednesday, 13 April 2022

Australia’s energy landscape is undergoing unprecedented change. New technologies for energy supply, distribution and storage, and their pricing and policy regimes are available now. Large scale technology changes can create friction with social and economic imperatives unless designed and implemented wisely.

Historically, development of policy for energy tended to separate the social, economic and technical issues into silos in relation to an energy system rapidly becoming obsolete.

An effective and equitable societal transition to a clean energy future requires much better understandings of the intersection of energy systems with communities’ experience of energy as part of their everyday lived experience.

The combined capabilities of the NUW Alliance provide an independent and objective voice on this journey by applying a multidisciplinary approach to the complex interactions between social, economic and technical dimensions of energy use. This is essential to proactively plan for an energy future that supports a just transition and positive community outcomes.

Recent research by UOW’s Australian Centre for Culture, Environment, Society and Space (ACCESS) and the Sustainable Buildings Research Centre (SBRC), for example, has found that technological ‘fixes’ are often constrained by social practices, workplace cultures, governance regimes, business models, and established market ‘norms’.

Preferences for lowest-cost servicing of buildings for example is one of the most significant barriers to energy efficiency.

For economically challenged social groups, other ACCESS and SBRC research has shown how social housing tenants experience energy bills, associated with rising energy prices and fuel poverty, as anxiety that disrupts their sense of home as a place of well-being. However, improving energy efficiency knowledge helped low income families to improve comfort and reduce anxiety about the cost of energy.

The links between fuel poverty and thermal discomfort have been identified in social housing internationally and linked with possible health risks for tenants. Statistically, many of the known factors linking poor thermal performance of dwellings and increased health risk are comparatively over-represented in Australia.

Interdisciplinary research indicated many dwellings in Australia frequently operate outside the WHO healthy temperature range both in winter and summer, highlighting the difficult choices tenants are forced to make between thermal comfort and manageable energy bills. Clearly, understanding how energy is connected to social well-being is a key dimension of achieving just transitions to clean energy.

Much energy research activity is still defined by disciplinary silos and a lack of attention to socio-technical challenges. This risks repeating historical missteps of shaping energy markets around incomplete economic assumptions and techno- optimism, ignoring critical social dimensions. New technologies facilitate a growing desire for individuals to control their own energy generation and use, but the capacity to do this is unevenly distributed.

A just energy transition must ultimately entitle all members of society to participate in a clean energy future. NUW Alliance R&D skills can ensure that the most vulnerable are not overlooked.

Article authored by Ty Christopher, Director of the Energy Futures Network, Senior Professor Pauline McGuirk, School of Geography and Sustainable Communities and Director of the Australian Centre for Culture, Environment, Society & Space (ACCESS), Dr Chantel Carr, ARC DECRA Fellow, School of Geography and Sustainable Communities, Mr Daniel Daly, Early Career Researcher, Sustainable Buildings Research Centre, Dr Theresa Harada, Associate Research Fellow, School of Geography and Sustainable Communities, University of Wollongong.

To read this article with full text referencing and other thought leadership articles such as this please see the NUW Alliance Biannual Report (2022 Q1-2).

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