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The roles of users in shaping transitions to new energy systems

Nature Energy volume 1, Article number: 16054 (2016) Cite this article

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Abstract

Current government information policies and market-based instruments aimed at influencing the energy choices of consumers often ignore the fact that consumer behaviour is not fully reducible to individuals making rational conscious decisions all the time. The decisions of consumers are largely configured by shared routines embedded in socio-technical systems. To achieve a transition towards a decarbonized and energy-efficient system, an approach that goes beyond individual consumer choice and puts shared routines and system change at its centre is needed. Here, adopting a transitions perspective, we argue that consumers should be reconceptualized as users who are important stakeholders in the innovation process shaping new routines and enacting system change. We review the role of users in shifts to new decarbonized and energy-efficient systems and provide a typology of user roles.

A key challenge in reducing carbon emissions is to understand how to unlock current energy-intensive and fossil fuel-based consumption patterns, thereby enabling transitions towards new forms of decarbonized and highly energy-efficient consumption. Despite progress toward more energy-efficient appliances, overall levels of energy consumption continue to rise. For some devices and services, such as information and communication technologies, this is simply because of an increase in their total usage1,2. In other cases the redefinition of existing products, an example being SUVs, has resulted in an overall increase in energy consumption3. Moreover, gains made by introducing more energy-efficient measures have been partly offset by a rebound effect, wherein money saved on energy consumption is spent on more consumption4,5. Meanwhile, economic development in emerging economies means that a growing part of the population is adopting the energy-intensive Western lifestyle characterized by high energy demands for living, food production and transport.

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Figure 1: User roles and transition dynamics.

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Acknowledgements

This project has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 613194. We would also like to thank our many colleagues in the transition and innovation communities, the EU-Innovate EU project (http://www.euinnovate.com/en), the Science Policy Research Unit of the University of Sussex and the Department of Innovation Sciences of the Eindhoven University of Technology, who have commented on earlier versions and contributed to our thinking.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, Jubilee Building, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9SL, UK

    Johan Schot

  2. Institute of Social Studies, University of Tartu, Lossi 36, Tartu, 51003, Estonia

    Laur Kanger

  3. School of Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology, PO Box 513, Eindhoven, 5600 MB, The Netherlands

    Geert Verbong

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Correspondence to Johan Schot.

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Schot, J., Kanger, L. & Verbong, G. The roles of users in shaping transitions to new energy systems. Nat Energy 1, 16054 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2016.54

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