Transforming the energy system? Technology and organisational legitimacy and the institutionalisation of community renewable energy

Community renewable energy promises to play an important role in reducing the generation and consumption of high carbon sources of power, as well as in demonstrating the viability of novel business models within a transformed energy system built on principles of locality and democracy. The paper argues, however, that community renewable energy, in England at least, remains marginal, undermined by changing government policies and underplayed institutional factors connected with technology and organisational legitimacy. The paper reports on interviews with 29 actors connected with community renewable energy in England. The analysis identifies themes implicating various types of legitimacy with the partial and uneven institutionalisation of community renewable energy. These are bound up with continuing and new institutional rules and the deployment of strategies for (de)legitimising community renewable energy, including associated technologies and organisational forms, adversely impacting on the potential contribution of community renewable energy to energy system transformation.