Introduction

Energy sector redesign is central to shifting human societies towards sustainable futures. Scholars from both natural and social sciences have identified the problematic connection between resource extraction, consumption, waste and biophysical collapse (Barnosky et al. 2012; CCPA et al. 2006; Faber 2008; Princen et al. 2002; Rees 2012; Sheer 2007; Sovacool et al. 2011; Speth 2008; Stephenson et al. 2010). The IPCC’s fifth assessment report states clearly that human activities are driving these changes and that the probable outcomes include increased likelihood of severe weather events (droughts, hurricanes), sea level and temperature rises (IPCC 2014; Stocker et al. 2013). However, concerted action to enhance the policy supports and penetration of wind, solar and other new renewable energy technologies continues to provoke controversy in many neighbourhoods, boardrooms and parliaments even in wealthy nations with significant policy and economic capacity to change current practices (Barry et al. 2008; Jaccard and Simpson 2007). In recent years, many states have experimented with innovative forms of citizen engagement that attempt to involve publics in deliberation on and design of energy policies and practices (Giddens 2009; Gipe 2007; MacArthur 2012; MacArthur 2014). Citizen engagement in policymaking represents an increasingly popular mechanism for civic rejuvenation and policy innovation; its application in many different policy fora from city budgeting to housing and energy systems across various national contexts provides, in theory, space for the public to feel empowered, connected to new policy spaces and positions them to aid in design and implementation of more effective solutions to complex social and environmental problems.

Unfortunately, much of the high-level climate policy research has not engaged in significant ways with social and political theory on this issue (Baber and Bartlett 2005; Barry 2012; Forsyth 2013; Park et al. 2008). The natural sciences and economics have played a much larger role in international reports, for example, than studies of politics, power, ideology and culture (Bjurström and Polk 2011). In renewable energy circles in particular, calls for participation, ‘engagement’ and community power are increasing, but in many cases with little acknowledgement of the specific challenges, participation entails for either participants or policymakers (REN21 2014). This oversight has serious consequences not only for adequately diagnosing the institutional and behavioural drivers of human choices—which go far beyond narrow economic rationality—but also for effective design of new sustainability innovations (Meadowcroft 2011; Stirling 2014). This article seeks to fill that gap by linking insights from political and institutional theorists on energy politics and participatory democracy with specific examples of renewable energy policy engagement. The aim is to highlight the diversity and challenges entailed in the practice of participatory renewable energy policymaking to date in order to inform more effective policy designs going forward.

Two overarching research questions inform this article: (1) What are the political challenges and opportunities associated with participatory engagement? (2) How do these manifest in practice in renewable energy subsystems? In order to answer them, I first begin with an analysis of key debates within political science over the function and role of participatory institutions and public policy engagement. This helps to address the gap in much of the renewable energy literature, which often relies on a thin understanding of the issues of power and democracy raised in various forms of participation. From here, a profile emerges of a spectrum of participatory interventions as identified by the key actors, processes and policy power. The article then moves to illustrating the diversity and potential of participatory experiments in practice across national jurisdictions. While states like Denmark have successfully fostered public deliberation and participation in the energy sector through local empowerment, others like Canada exhibit mixed results despite increasing public interest. Canada and Denmark are similar countries with respect to their significant policy and economic capacity for innovation, but with diverse approaches to public engagement in this area.

At issue is not just whether public engagement is taking place (it is), but also the strengths and weaknesses of different participatory designs in this policy subsystem. Three diverse examples of public participation in RE systems are then explored in the latter part of this paper—deliberative polling in Nova Scotia, Danish community energy policies and community engagement in Ontario’s Green Energy and Economy Act (2009). These were selected based on the variation in actors (broad vs narrow), processes (consultative, informational, devolution) and power (limited vs strong) in each. In each, I examine (1) the participating actors, (2) the structure of decision-making and (3) the connection between public decisions and policy action. Due to limited space, this article cannot provide either a comprehensive overview of the voluminous political literature on participation and democracy, nor can it analyze all participatory experiments in these two national jurisdictions. However, the narrowed selection of national contexts to include a leader and laggard, together with an illustrative group of case examples, facilitates a deeper practical discussion of the contribution of theories of democratic engagement in this subsector. The particular research design employed highlights the importance of critical understandings of participation while linking these insights to specific instances in renewable energy policy where participatory designs have been used. Ultimately, the theoretical and empirical developments presented below challenge environmental researchers from outside politics to investigate the design, intent and context of participatory policies more thoroughly. They illustrate how thin and consultative acts of participatory engagement can have unexpected effects, through participatory exhaustion or backlash. On the other hand, deeper forms of engagement that transfer power to citizens can be very effective and transformative under certain conditions, but are by no means simple or without cost.

The politics of renewable energy transitions

The negative environmental impacts of polluting and inefficient energy systems are serious and widespread. Global carbon dioxide emissions, a major contributor to this anthropogenic climate change, have now surpassed 400 parts per million, and other greenhouse gasses such as methane and nitrous oxide are also rising quickly (Sweet 2013). These emissions are driven in a large part by continued global reliance on fossil fuel combustion to support key vital socioeconomic activities, including production, transport, heating and communication. According to the International Energy Agency, energy-related emissions from carbon dioxide represent the largest sectoral contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, and fossil fuels still account for more than 80 % of the world’s energy supply despite their clear connection to environmental degradation (International Energy Agency 2013, p. 8). Indeed, global CO2 emissions from the energy sector have increased annually, with the highest increases in developing countries as consumption and populations increase. Per capita emissions, however, are highest in wealthy states in North America, Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) and Europe, sitting at between 17 and 7 gigatonnes per person in 2011 (International Energy Agency 2013). Significant national variation in emissions exists, driven by resource endowments as well as energy policy divergence; in countries like Denmark, CO2 emissions between 1990 and 2011 decreased by 17.7 %, while in Canada during the same period, they increased by 23.7 %, in Australia, they increased by 52.6 % and in New Zealand, they increased by 35.8 % (International Energy Agency 2013).

Co-ordinated and effective action is clearly required to reduce these energy-related contributors to climate destabilization. Modern energy systems have multiple potential sites for innovative and engaging policy interventions, during extraction, production, transport and consumption. Policy choices and the actors that set and implement them drive which fuels are used, how they are distributed and their end uses. Public advocacy for energy transitions has gained traction in many jurisdictions in recent decades, particularly since most states have been slow to move off high-carbon and high-energy intensive economic activities. Pressure to change the mechanisms and actors within energy policy subsystems has accompanied frustration over the slow pace of global renewable transitions. The energy sector has historically been highly regulated, elite-based and ‘closed’ due to both the infrastructural intensity and socioeconomic importance (Doern and Gattinger 2003; Doern 2007). Recent efforts towards public engagement examined in this article therefore reflect an important and potentially transformative shift in the techniques of energy governance.

Three challenges in particular have emerged from comparative political research on energy reform and climate policy. They highlight the importance of taking the politics of policy seriously. First, climate policy commitments become more likely in democracies but this does not necessarily lead to reduced emissions, due to entrenched institutional interests and cultures that undermine effective implementation (Bättig and Bernauer 2009; Stephenson et al. 2010). Another way to put this is that public pressure may translate into symbolic acts, which are weakened during implementation (for example, when exemptions are granted, credits awarded or regulations enforced). Secondly, and relatedly, issues around scientific uncertainty, conflicting values and the role of ‘truth’ in policy decision-making suggest that effective transitions cannot rely on naïve characterizations of human behaviour (i.e. as hyper-rational interest maximizers or as trusting subjects of elite decision makers) (Haas 2004; Miller and Edwards 2001). Political life around the globe has been characterized by declining trust in authority figures—politicians and scientists alike. Citizens in a diverse range of national contexts regularly contest and resist new policies (Pal 2010; Rozema et al. 2012). Finally, as international and intra-state distributive controversies have arisen—over the cumulative emissions between wealthy and developing nations, or the pollution and heavy impacts to poor communities within a state, for example—political researchers have raised the importance of just transitions (Kaswan 2009; Sandberg and Sandsberg 2010; Sikor and Newell 2014).

Clearly, significant transformation of national energy systems is necessary, and these transitions require more renewables, a significant decrease in fossil fuel combustion, more efficiency, less wasted resources and a focus on just distribution and energy security. However, the political arrangements and policy designs that are more likely to lead us there are somewhat less certain. The following section explores central longstanding debates in politics over enhanced democratization of policymaking.

The politics of participatory engagement

What does it mean to take the politics of participatory designs seriously? Political scientists and philosophers stretching back to the ancient Greeks have debated how different forms of participation shape the effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy of governing. Questions of who rules? and how? are supplemented by the more normatively driven ones of who should rule? and why? At issue are both the actors that are involved in decision-making as well as the instruments and processes used to implement policies. Indeed, instrument choice—whether through voluntary arrangements, market mechanisms or regulations—is far from a simply technical matter as it reveals a ‘theorization of the relationship between the governing and the governed’. (Lascoumes and Galés 2007) Many of the issues raised by a shift towards participatory and engaged policymaking reflect this point that policy practices reflect actor’s commitments (or lack thereof) to citizen empowerment and deepened democracy.

On one side of the debate sits those advocating the construction of authoritative rules (policymaking) by political elites from executives, legislatures and the bureaucracy, usually in collaboration with economic and technical elites. This traditional model, via a concentration of power in relatively few expert and political actors, was thought to be more efficient than larger and more diverse decision-making groups. It was also generally accepted that the general public would not be able (due to lack of education, or group-based ‘inferiorities’ of class, gender or race), or willing (due to disinterest or time constraints), to participate in their own governance (Fischer 1993; Howlett et al. 2003; Pal 2010; Reed 2008). As we will see below, there are serious challenges to many of these claims, but others persist, particularly those relating to the practicalities of deep public engagement.

On the other side sit those advocating a democratization of governance and policymaking to include broad public participation. There are a number of trends in recent years that have supported this ‘deliberative’ and a participatory turn in policymaking, particularly environmental policymaking (Dobson 2005; Dryzek 1992, 2002; Fiorino 1990). There are both instrumental and normatively based arguments at play here (Baker 2014). An argument in the former category challenges the ability of democratic governments to effectively steer through conventional policy tools, when the public is either distrustful of elites and governments or does not agree on the basic nature of the problem. On this front, scholars like Fischer (1993) and Salamon (2002) argue that the traditional policy tools like regulation and information provision are far less effective with complex, contested and highly controversial problems. This has led to calls for more creative and inclusive solutions, including participatory exercises to lead to greater policy uptake and less resistance from social actors. Recent work in the field of renewable energy choices in England supports the utility of this approach. Dobson et al., for example, found that people are more likely to reduce their consumption of electricity if the information to do so flows from within their social networks (Dobson et al. 2013). In the Netherlands, participation and reflexive policymaking has formed a foundation for their approach to adaptive and phased sustainability ‘transitions management’ (Loorbach 2010; Rotmans et al. 2001). In this sense, participation is not only a good unto itself, but is also a particularly useful tool for state actors to reach their goals.

The normative case for more participatory policymaking rests on a broader claim that elite-dominated policy fora are, essentially, less democratic. Widening avenues for public participation then is part of a larger project of enhancing the depth and quality of a democracy towards increased empowerment. For example, Carole Pateman’s (1970) work on participation made the argument that it led to more empowered, educated and capable citizenry. Another strain within this thinking rests on the issue of democratic legitimacy. In the context of a rather widespread and well-documented democratic decline in many countries, participatory exercises have become part of a project to enhance trust and faith in state actors and processes. States willing to facilitate public participation and, importantly, act on this input demonstrate a commitment to accountability that sets a foundation for our understanding of democratic state-forms. Following from Pateman and others, democratic renewal through participation then forms part of a mutually reinforcing process where more engagement leads to more informed and skilled citizenry, which leads to more representative policies, more trust in state actors and so forth. So, effectiveness here may be a by-product but is not necessarily the goal—empowerment is.

Political scholars have also illustrated how participatory policymaking can take a wide range of forms, and these forms vary in their structure and the space they create for public power. For example, in deliberative polls, a random representative group of citizens is brought together to discuss and develop their thinking on a complex policy topic. Researchers and policymakers can use this information to understand how best to navigate policy trade-offs and interpret often conflicting information from more simplistic public opinion polls. Citizens assemblies gather together random cross-sections of a public to discuss, debate and make recommendations on a particularly complex or controversial topic. In the case of the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform, the assembly’s recommendations were then voted on in a provincial referendum. In participatory budgeting exercises, members of a territory or organization discuss, prioritize and allocate public funds. The most famous of these exercises is in Porto Alegre, Brazil, but the practice has spread to more than a thousand cities around the world. Participatory policy engagement can also include citizen control through direct ownership of assets and service provision. In this latter case, exemplified by moves towards citizen and community ownership of food, energy and financial organizations, publics become direct stakeholders in sector governance as well as citizen-participants. Nobel prize winner Elinor Ostrom’s work on common pool resource governance illustrates how communities, via these institutions, can make and enforce rules (policies) for local environmental management (Ostrom 1990). Some of these forms of participatory engagement will be discussed in more detail in the following section.

As interest in participatory exercises has increased, the meaning and purpose has also diversified, with many commenters distinguishing between ‘meaningful’ and ‘empowering’ participation and ‘co-opting’ or ‘manipulative’ participatory forms. One of the earliest articulations of the range is represented by Arnstein’s ladder of participation (Arnstein 1969). She differentiated between three broad categories: non-participation (manipulation and therapy), tokenism (informing, consultation and placation) and citizen power (partnership, delegated power and citizen control). At the lowest level of the ladder sit engagements with the broader public that could be characterized as manipulation, informing or consulting. At the top sits citizen control, with delegated power beneath. Archon Fung (2006) has since expanded on and critiqued Arnstein’s formulation in a number of fruitful ways. He argues that in the ladder from manipulation to citizen control, increasing participation is associated with normatively ‘better’ outcomes—more participation is more desirable. While this may be the case in some contexts, it will not necessarily apply in all sectors, times or communities; attempts to understand where and when certain types of participatory designs might be counterproductive to particular aims—such as a need for rapid-response decision-making—are thus important. The issue of appropriateness of participant decision makers is also commonly raised over issues of scientific expertise (as with controversial knowledge claims in climate science) or in jurisdictions with deep and dangerous political cleavages. Given the urgency of renewable energy transitions to climate change mitigation, participatory designs may, in fact, prove the most ethically defensible but not necessarily the most effective instruments. Fung (2006) then goes on to pose three questions that provide analytical traction for more nuanced understanding of the varieties of participatory engagement:

  1. 1.

    Who participates?

  2. 2.

    How do they communicate and make decisions?

  3. 3.

    What is the connection between their conclusions and opinions on one hand and public policy and action on the other?

It is within Fung’s question 3 that many current issues have arisen with the practice of participatory policymaking. Perhaps rather naively, we often assume that the ability for diverse groups and individuals to participate actually leads to meaningful participation in sectoral governance. Put another way, we may equate ‘participation’ with power, when empirically this is not the case, as relatively powerless participation is also a possible outcome. This discussion raises a number of important challenges for those interested in environmental policy design: there is certainly a clear trend towards—at the very least talking about—public engagement, participation and even in some cases deliberation in policy design and implementation; there is no one way to participate as the actors, forums and degrees of authoritative power differ a great deal; there is more complexity than most policymakers and RE advocates acknowledge to the practice of participatory design, particularly over the issue of power over policy outcomes.

Participation in renewable energy policy

Renewable energy is a crucially important policy space where a range of the participatory experiments described above have been put into practice in different countries. Identifying and assessing the mechanisms that build popular support for green transitions is vital given that political challenges—and not technological ones—explain the persistent failure globally to address complex environmental problems like climate change (Barry 2012; Giddens 2009; Macdonald 2009; Murphy and Murphy 2012; Stern 2007). Controversy over green technologies and energy restructuring exists in wealthy and developing countries alike. Established industrial interests, policymakers, ratepayers and rural communities (where most new energy projects are sited) are all central actors to increase the impact and diffusion of renewables, despite their different roles in service delivery and policy design. Conflicts have thus arisen over the particular policy tools for new renewables, but also much deeper political debates which include the purpose and design of energy systems, the veracity of scientific claims, and the distribution of environmental, social and economic impacts of new project development (Devine-Wright 2011). For example, Barry, Ellis and Robinson have examined the role of local opponents (NIMBYs) in the UK context and found that the basis for some of the backlash was a lack of trust in government, regulatory processes and windfarm developers: ‘Those presenting the anti-wind energy position are keen not to be regarded as motivated by self-interest, but are skeptical of “non-local forces” (state and business) coming in and trying to pull the wool over their eyes with what they see as “PR stunts” portrayed as consultations’ (Barry et al. 2008). While supports for participation can certainly play a role in shifting a portion of the economic gains from new development to a broader group, the community sector’s marginal share in the larger electricity market can limit its potential to make the technology broadly acceptable.

Squaring the circle of interests, power and authority is thus proving a difficult challenge, even in jurisdictions with ample funding, broad public support and readily available renewable technologies. These countries—Canada, New Zealand, the US, UK—present a hard case for those interested in climate action, as lack of effective action by the wealthy states creates a dangerous precedent for the international community more broadly. In order to examine the politics of democratic engagement in the energy sector in particular, I have focused on jurisdictions where the challenges are more about will than financial or technological capacity, which meant narrowing down to developed countries. Denmark is widely acknowledged as a leader in the field of participatory renewable design and an obvious case for this research on the diversity of practices and their potential. Canada is less so, but provides a useful context for looking at how participatory experiments have unfolded outside continental Europe, and whether (and how) lessons have transferred from policy leaders like Denmark where post 1990 emissions have decreased. In Canada, as with Australia, New Zealand and many other similar countries, emission trends continue to rise instead of fall, signifying an urgent need for revisiting policies and practices in the energy subsector. Finally, participatory designs in renewable energy in Canada are also relatively new, representing a number of firsts: the first urban community wind turbine in North America, the first deliberative poll in Canada.

The participatory designs illustrated in the previous section—from citizen assemblies to project ownership and control—exist as on a spectrum wherein the number of actors varies. Political scholars have argued that this variation in terms of actors and participatory designs has implications for both the legitimacy and effectiveness of the decisions made. The cases explored below illustrate the challenging issues and significant opportunities for political and technological transformation. The first case focuses on a deliberative poll about renewable energy trade-offs conducted in the province of Nova Scotia; the other two cases—community energy systems in Denmark and Ontario’s Green Energy and Economy Act—focus on community ownership as a form of engagement, but in different structures and the diverse national settings. Due to the limitations of space, they cannot, of course, be taken as a comprehensive survey of national practices in either jurisdiction or of the full range of participatory practices in the sector. They were chosen as exemplars based on Denmark’s leadership in community renewable energy described above and for illustration of participatory renewable energy initiatives in the Canadian context. Taken together, these examples illustrate key benefits and challenges of moving along the spectrum from informative polls to institutional development and ownership.

Nova Scotia Power deliberative polling

In the province of Nova Scotia in 2004, the electricity utility, Nova Scotia Power, held Canada’s first deliberative poll. The private integrated utility was tasked with increasing its share of renewable power in the Governments’ Renewable Energy Standards policy. Nova Scotia Power generates the majority of its electricity from coal plants (59 % in 2012, down from nearly 80 % in 2006 (Nova Scotia Power 2013), and was seeking a way to both (a) understand public attitudes about environment/economy trade-offs and (b) gather information on possible acceptable responses. Johnson examines the event and its impact (2011), outlining that the deliberative poll took place during a 2-day Customer Energy Forum. The 135 participants of the forum were drawn from a representative sample of the population. Prior to the event, they were provided with background information and materials prepared by an advisory committee representing a range of stakeholders and interests in the power sector, including those without a direct financial stake (environmental NGOs and charities, for example). Participants were administered pre-deliberation and post-deliberation surveys to trace the changes in overall attitudes. During the forum, they participated in moderated small group discussions and panel discussions with experts, ultimately supporting a strong shift towards more renewable electricity generation and demand side management (DSM), despite projected cost increases.

Many in Johnson’s study found the event to be a success: the public had an opportunity to both learn about and shape utility energy priorities, and the utility gained confidence that bolder policy moves would be met with support if the population was able to engage with the issues. However, observers and some participants raised questions about the ultimate impact of the forum beyond an exercise in public relations (Personal Interview, August 2009). While it was certainly more inclusive in Arnstein’s scale than simple information provision, there was nothing binding about the forum’s conclusions, and some argued that it was the tightening of provincial renewable standards, rather than any participatory public engagement at the forum, that drove changes to the utility’s electricity mix (Johnson 2009, 2011). The one-time forum design allowed for gathering more in-depth information than a general public survey. This participatory design also facilitated in-depth policy discussions and interactions between a wide range of participants. The emphasis remained on the informational and consultative range of the spectrum of engagement.

Danish community energy

A rather different experiment in engaging the public in energy systems comes from Denmark and involves community ownership and service provision. Community wind turbine ownership emerged alongside the development of combined heat and power and district heatingFootnote 1 as part of a larger move to improve economic and environmental outcomes in the country following the 1970s energy crisis. These public engagement features of Danish energy policy experiments are often credited for that country’s comparatively large uptake of wind turbines and district energy systems. The latest figures from the Danish Energy Agency from 2010 illustrate the important role that renewable energy sources and efficiency technologies play in Denmark. Renewables (solar, wind, hydro and biomass) make up nearly 41 % of total electricity consumption and 23 % of total energy consumption. Moreover, wind turbines account for 29 % of the total electricity generation capacity, and combined heat and power (CHP) makes up 76 % of total district heating (Danish Energy Agency 2013). While the Danes are not alone in this ownership-engagement approach, they do represent one of the most developed and wide-ranging application of citizen control. An important difference between this approach and that of Nova Scotia Power deliberative polling design is that the engagement of new ideas is not part of a one-off process. Rather, the intervention in policy development relates more directly to a decentralization of service delivery and creation of participant groups empowered with increased power and control over project siting, future developments and allocation of financial resources.

The actors participating in this model are community-based (municipal) utilities and locally owned co-operative associations. These organizations are part of national associations involved in co-ordination and lobbying with policymakers and members vote on organizational policies, practices and developments. The argument advanced for this form of engagement in renewable energy is that local citizen ownership is a useful mechanism for (a) citizen education on the complexities of energy projects, (b) creating a financial stake in new renewable and efficiency projects and (c) a move towards more reflexivity design and implementation (Hoffman and High-Pippert 2009). Social networks, trust and project revenue all function to connect public decisions to sectoral power, particularly when these associations form more than a marginal segment of the energy sector in a given jurisdiction. Support for renewable energy transitions is thus enhanced through the creation of more informed, engaged and active citizens in the particular policy arena.

One example of this engaged ownership is the Middelgrunden offshore windfarm in Copenhagen. When it was built in 2000, it was the world’s largest offshore wind development at 40 MW (MW). Community engagement and ownership in the project, however, led to ‘mitigation of general protests, blocking or delaying projects, and increase future confidence, acceptance and support in relation to the coming offshore wind farms in Europe’ (Sørensen et al. 2002). The project initiators, the Copenhagen Environment and Energy Office (CEEO), detail (Copenhagen Energy and Environment Office 2003) how the processes of local buy-in, feedback and engagement also led to improvements in project design. This included a more visually appealing layout, which helped to reduce public opposition since the windfarm is visible from the city. What makes Middelgrunden particularly interesting is the mixed ownership of both individual and institutional investors, which provide both diversity and institutional capacity. It is a 50–50 partnership between a municipal utility (Københavns Energi) and the Middelgrundens Vindmøllelaug co-operative. The co-operative has 10,000 members with investments ranging from 500 euro to 3000 euro. While the vast majority (85 %) of members are individual residents of the city, others are local teacher unions and foundations (Larsen et al. 2003).

One of the features encouraging projects like Middelgrunden was that the Danish state made investment income for such projects tax-free. According to the International Energy Agency, the institutional structure of a co-operative-enabled effective policy action ‘… large power plants were again organized as cooperatives, with electricity distributors as owners. This form of organization, without a traditional profit motive, offered little resistance to government intervention in the sectors for electricity and heat’ (International Energy Agency 2012). This Danish experience today stands in relatively stark contrast to the NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard-ism) that has emerged in response to new renewable developments in other jurisdictions. Scholars have traced the role of political opposition in the ‘dash for wind’ in jurisdictions like the UK and Canada (Walker et al. 2007, MacArthur, Empowering Electricity: co-operatives, sustainability and power reform in Canada, unpublished).

Ontario communities and the Green Energy and Economy Act 2009

The third case illustrating challenges and opportunities for community engagement in the energy sector is that of Ontario’s Green Energy and Economy Act (GEEA) in 2009. It represents a case of attempted policy transfer and learning from earlier participatory experiments in Denmark and Germany in an effort to build a more sustainable energy sector in Canada’s largest province (MacArthur 2012). As a result of these efforts, in 2013, Ontario completed a planned phase out of coal generation facilities, becoming the first jurisdiction in North America to do so. New renewable energy technologies now play a large and increasing role in the province’s grid, with a relatively diverse range of actors which includes a small, albeit growing, share for communities. The GEEA was heavily informed by community actors, together with lobbyists from green tech industries, and a provincial government increasingly reminded of the health costs of pollution from coal plants (Rowlands 2007). The form of policy engagement at play here is less straightforward than in the preceding two cases; pressure from grassroots environmental actors together with innovative ‘best practices’ in Europe resulted in the adoption of North America’s first feed-in-tariff (FIT). Drawing from Danish and German successes, it provided financial incentives for community—co-operative, local, first nations—ownership of new electricity projects on the understanding that community ownership forms a vital element for building the social acceptance of the technology (Stokes 2013). This involved the creation of community power networks, providing seed funding for feasibility studies and premium rates for locally generated power. The connection between public feedback and policy outputs (the community FIT) is clear in this case, as is the continued connection between these new actors and regulatory agencies during subsequent revisions of rules and rates (Gipe 2010, Gipe 2013).

A range of challenges have emerged from the Ontario case, however, and they suggest lessons for future participatory engagement designs. Many centre on the lack of significant penetration of the community model throughout the broader power sector. Despite policy support for community engagement, a strong and vocal ‘anti-wind’ lobby has also emerged in Ontario, as it has in the UK, Australia and other jurisdictions mentioned earlier in this article (Devine-Wright 2011). While some opponents cite health impacts of the turbines, others focus on the economic transfers from public agencies to private energy companies in times of economic hardship. Tensions have also developed within communities, between those who are involved and invested in locally owned projects and others who have not (MacArthur, Empowering Electricity: co-operatives, sustainability and power reform in Canada, unpublished). Furthermore, the extra payments for community and the first nations’ owned power have stimulated a community power sector in the province, but loose definitions of ‘community’, lack of awareness of non-profit and co-operative models and underdeveloped institutional support systems have frustrated community actors. Some of these actors worked for more than 10 years on volunteer time, money and energy with no project to show at the end of the day. The roadblocks they encountered then led to a renewed engagement with and education of policymakers, energy companies and bureaucrats as to the role and potential of local project engagement. Key issues that have emerged from this case also include political backlash for the Liberal government in power, international trade challenges (to local procurement requirements) and infrastructural limitations (grid capacity) (MacArthur, Empowering Electricity: co-operatives, sustainability and power reform in Canada, unpublished). Despite these significant challenges, the public engagement efforts of policy and grassroots actors resulted in the construction of locally owned turbines in key locales (such as the WindShare turbine at Toronto’s Exhibition Place), a burgeoning community solar network and a strengthening group of supportive funding and networking organizations (Gervitz and Lipp 2005; Stokes 2013).

Conclusions and implications

At a time when many are losing faith in representative democratic institutions—elections, politicians and state institutions—participatory engagement in this crucial sector provides an avenue for optimism and governance innovation. At outset of this article, I posed two questions: (1) What are the political challenges and opportunities associated with participatory engagement? (2) How do these manifest in practice in renewable energy subsystems? The first two sections of this article dealt with the first question and the final section addressed the second. It is clear that participatory mechanisms are varied in their constitution and outcomes. Policymakers can employ them as symbolic acts or may elect to construct more robust systems where participation is tied to clear policy power. Their design can enhance and broaden democratic practices based on the introduction of new actors and perspectives, as well as the nature and quality of dialogues held with various publics. Project ownership is one particularly promising type of participatory design that is accompanied by, in some instances, powerful educative ties and supporting incentives. However, as we saw in the case of community power in Ontario, participation can also be financially and politically costly and drain resources from community organizations unable to see projects to fruition. Projects like deliberative polling also present challenges in that actors may feel cheated (and that their time was wasted) if the co-ordinating bodies are not bound in any way by the results of deliberations.

Shallow participation or perceived co-optation can be a result of limited participatory exercises and these may serve to have detrimental effects of participating populations. As a result, it is crucial not to underestimate the amount of time, energy and political contestation that emerges when diverse groups’ interests are taken seriously. A central claim of much participatory engagement literature is that participation can help to revitalize civic practices and spaces, generating more resilient and innovative governance mechanisms. As such feelings of manipulation, wasted time and ‘business as usual’ are problematic and can, counterproductively, lead to deepened cynicism rather than effective engagement in new and controversial policy areas. Sustainability and renewable energy advocates need to be cognizant of the resource and political commitments that meaningful participatory engagement entails. This point is especially salient in a subsector where policymakers have little practice with effective engagement, and policymaking spaces have been historically dominated by large industrial interests. The likelihood of ineffective participatory designs is high, and sustainable transitions are not served well by further erosion of trust in governing institutions.

Finally, engaging diverse publics can be problematic based on limitations of participant capacity as well as institutional myopia within established sectoral networks. The potential for engagement to incorporate marginalized and non-traditional actors is deeply dependent on provision of discursive and participatory spaces backed up by funds. This requires taking the particular constraints on these populations seriously, constraints that the more traditional elite actors are unlikely to share. These issues may, for example, include lack of time off from paid employment or caregiving responsibilities. Similarly, just as one person’s ‘ability to participate’ is constrained in specific ways, so too are the degrees of openness to different forms of engagement from sector to sector and jurisdiction to jurisdiction. For example, one challenge that emerges in these practices, particularly in historically closed, elite-dominated policy spaces like energy, is that new engagements run in tandem beneath a deeper network of powerful actors and interests. The specific configuration of these actors and their relationship in a given historical context is subject to change. As such, innovation in one jurisdiction (Denmark, for example) cannot easily, or uncritically, be replicated in others.

Each of these points highlights the complexities of participatory engagement. There are certainly strong arguments, both instrumental and normative, for increasing the depth of citizen engagement and implementation in renewable energy transitions. In order for them to be successful in a wide range of contexts, however, participatory designs must engage more directly with broader issues of political economy than has been the norm to date.