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Pages tagged "paper"

“Stretch and transform” for energy justice: Indigenous advocacy for institutional transformative change of electricity in British Columbia, Canada

This study offers insights from a unique case of meso-level collective action by First Nations in British Columbia, Canada, aimed at transformative electricity institutional change.

We collate regulatory and advocacy text to characterise the range of proposed First Nation Power Authority models and their placement along a continuum of conformative to transformative energy justice.

Interviews with knowledge holders from 14 First Nations offer insight into motivations behind transformative change and how it is shaped by historical injustice alongside practical community objectives around energy security, resilience, and community development.

First Nations narratives of electricity transformation are aligned with the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) and with goals of self-determination and incorporate relational and regional approaches.

These findings validate theoretical frameworks of transformational energy justice (Avelino et al., 2024; Elmallah et al., 2022).

Much of the groundwork has been laid by the collective and the regulator, while new legislation has opened a window of opportunity to increase Indigenous participation and control in the electricity sector.

Authors: Christina E. Hoicka, Adam Regier, Anna L. Berka, Sara Chitsaz, Kayla Klym, “Stretch and transform” for energy justice: Indigenous advocacy for institutional transformative change of electricity in British Columbia, Canada, Energy Policy, Volume 202, 2025

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The effect of residential solar on energy insecurity among low- to moderate-income households

This study evaluates whether residential rooftop solar can serve as a preventative solution to energy insecurity among low- to moderate-income households.

We found that solar leads to large, robust and salient reductions in five indicators of energy insecurity.

Moreover, the benefits of solar ‘spill over’ to improve a household’s ability to pay other energy bills.

The results suggest that rooftop solar may be an effective tool for policymakers who seek to reduce energy insecurity.

Authors: Yozwiak, M., Barbose, G., Carley, S. et al. The effect of residential solar on energy insecurity among low- to moderate-income households. Nat Energy (2025)

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Energy justice of sociotechnical imaginaries of light and life in the bush

Australia’s story of the energy transition is most visible in the uptake of large-scale solar and wind farms or now prolific rooftop solar. Less visible is the role of renewable energy in efforts to reinstate life and land to Australia’s Indigenous peoples.

This paper tells the story of off-grid remote renewable energy rollouts in Indigenous communities in Northern Australia.

While the analysis is specific to Australia, it has broader lessons about incorporating Indigenous governance approaches into renewable energy rollouts so that Indigenous communities in financially constrained contexts share in the intended benefit of installed electricity systems.

Using energy sociotechnical imaginaries and energy justice, the paper explores the emergence, impact and contemporary legacy of Bushlight (2002–2013), a government funded renewable energy program delivered by an Indigenous-led non-profit organisation.

Bushlight was part of Australia’s early efforts to build its renewable energy sector, operating with a dual mandate of decarbonisation and community development in Indigenous Homelands communities.

The analysis of sociotechnical imaginaries explains how collectives come together to anticipate and address distributional justice issues through policy development and how these collectives and their vision for renewable energy evolve through implementation.

Tracing how these imaginaries extend into the present highlights the influence of broader socio-political dynamics shaping Indigenous-settler-colonial relations.

The paper’s findings have important implications for decolonisation, supporting Indigenous people to live on and care for Country while retaining their right to essential services.

This paper serves as a reminder that financial constraints can manifest unevenly within as well as between geopolitical segments. Governance approaches need to reflect this internal unevenness and can assist in addressing this unevenness through renewable energy rollouts.

Secondly, this case highlights the influence of governance and regulation in supporting equitable private sector delivery and operation of renewable energy power systems in complex and financially constrained contexts within high income national contexts. This serves as a reminder for donors, policy makers and private sector of the risks that accompany uncritically replicating energy supply arrangements in high income countries, often adopted by multi-lateral finance institutions and donors in the global south.

Thirdly, this paper reflects on energy policy and implementation as a force for supporting or weakening Citizen-State relations.

Finally, this paper provides an account of electrification through renewable energy rollouts that centred on Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies. In doing so, this contributes to a broader understanding of electrification beyond Atlantic-centred “global” histories.

Author: Anna Cain, Australian National University, College of Engineering and Computing and Cybernetics, ACT, Australia, published online 25 January 2024.

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Renewable Energy Development And The Native Title Act 1993 (Cwlth): The Fairness Of Validating Future Acts Associated With Renewable Energy Projects

Increasing demand, innovations in technology, and extensions to electricity grid infrastructure are likely to lead to a growth in renewable energy development on native title land and water.

The likelihood that native title holders and claimants will benefit from this development will depend in part upon the legal regime that governs native title.

The prevailing legal regime governing renewable energy development on native title land and water involves two principal alternatives to permitting development: voluntary land use agreements and compulsory government acquisition of native title.

While the procedures associated with these alternatives afford native title holders and claimants more procedural protection than some commentators have suggested, they fail to attain the standard of ‘free, prior, and informed consent’ prescribed by international best practice and the philosophical and moral arguments that underpin that standard.

To remedy this failure, the Native Title Act 1993 (Cwlth) should be amended to place less weight on economic and similar considerations when authorising the compulsory acquisition of native title for renewable energy development, or prohibit the compulsory acquisition of native title generally, except for in certain exceptional circumstances.

While this paper focuses on renewable energy in particular, a number of its conclusions could apply to issues that attenuate native title generally.

 

Author: Maynard, G. (2022), Renewable energy development and the Native Title Act 1993 (Cwlth): The fairness of validating future acts associated with renewable energy projects (Working Paper No. 143/2022), Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University

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Thanks for use of the photo by Angie Warren on Unsplash