Conflicting strategies towards sustainable heating at an urban junction of heat infrastructure and building standards

Introduction to the special issue – Urban energy governance: Local actions, capacities and politics

“…It also elaborates on the policy learning process contributing to broader socio-technical change within and between cities. The papers by Gabillet (2015), Hannon and Bolton (2015), Monstadt and Wolff (2015), Webb (2015) and Späth and Rohracher (2015) all delve into how decisions were made and the learning process in local municipal authorities and organizations. Verdeil et al (2015), Hannon and Bolton (2015) and Webb (2015) focus on the subsidies, finance and economic arrangements that also constitute an important resource in the construction of local capacity to act and effect change.…”

“…As Monstadt and Wolff (2015) summarize: "cities are critical for both enabling and constraining energy transitions". Political debate, friction and dissonance emerge over the strategic direction and degree of change, but also around particular policy choices and decisions (e.g., privatization) or around material sites and planning projects (Gabillet, 2015;Verdeil et al, 2015;Blanchet, 2015;Späth and Rohracher, 2015) which come to emblematize diverging points of view on future urban energy configurations. Some papers analyze, for example, how urban authorities use energy and energy-related strategies or policies to do things differently (or deviantly) to national regulatory frameworks or to bypass centralized control (Webb, 2015;Hannon and Bolton, 2015;Monstadt and Wolff, 2015).…”

Boundary Bridging Arrangements: A Boundary Work Approach to Local Energy Transitions

“…Diverging interests and personal antipathy, by contrast, can create solid boundaries even between actors from the same social world, jeopardizing their collaboration and leading to conflict (cf. [29,[82][83][84]). This relates to the role of power.…”

Energy efficiency left behind? Policy assemblages in Sweden’s most climate-smart city

“…While these policies primarily influence the relations between local government and developers, they can also affect energy utilities. For example, passive house standards for buildings can conflict with policies of mandatory connection to district heating systems (Späth & Rohracher, 2015). The variety of existing governance arrangements, each with different constellations of actors and technologies, leaves the possibility that smart grids might conflict not only with unsustainable socio-technical configurations, but also with existing governance arrangements that aim to reduce building energy use.…”