Rescaling renewable energy communities in Portugal: Expert imaginaries of business-as-usual, the empowered citizen and the smart network

Abstract

In the midst of the climate crisis, growing demands for an acceleration of Europe’s transition to renewable energy have led to the institutionalization and “upscaling” of disparate and local practices of community energy. This chapter examines how new laws for “Renewable Energy Communities” (RECs) have so far been constructed and construed by an array of different technical experts who are key intermediaries for the diffusion of this legal innovation in the Portuguese energy sector. We enquire into how this new object has or has not been envisioned as a desirable and realistic response to the challenges of energy transition and climate change, and how it has been shaped by different imaginaries, discourses and social representations. In particular, we examine the spatial and temporal dimensions of these imaginaries and how expert actors anchor their visions in relation to “the common good.” By focusing on the spatial, temporal and moral dimensions of different expert representations of RECs, we aim to foreground the contingency of legal innovation and the critical moments where the polysemy of RECs and the plurality of scalar possibilities are opened up or closed down.