Session 2. 5. A.

Nearly one million people in the Brazilian Amazon live off-grid with limited or no access to electricity, particularly Indigenous and traditional communities. Brazilian government is expanding electricity access via photovoltaic systems through a top-down policy titled Light for All Program. In parallel, NGOs, universities, and local communities have been experimenting with an energy commons framework, wherein communities govern and own their own energy systems. This comparative, qualitative study explores the experiences of two traditional communities in Santarém, Brazil: one served by the Light for All Program and the other by a university-supported, community-engaged project. The study: (i) examines and compares the impacts of top-down versus bottom-up approaches towards off-grid electrification; (ii) assesses how these models support or limit an energy commons framework. Preliminary findings, based on participant observation and interviews, indicate that both approaches improve quality of life, particularly through enabling food preservation via freezers. Government-led projects are better funded and supply more electricity to households, which enables the purchase of other electrical appliances. However, the top-down approach creates a “customer-provider” model with monthly bills, which can clash with local values of sovereignty and self-governance. In contrast, costs associated with projects implemented under an energy commons framing aim to solely cover maintenance efforts, thus disregarding profits. Moreover, this approach offers more flexible options to raise funds for maintaining the energy system, such as community labor or fundraising. Energy commons projects also invest in training to ensure communities are autonomous in repairing their own systems, which can lead to future self-funded expansions of the energy system. Finally, community sovereignty is strengthened through the creation of deliberation arenas in which communities create and negotiate rules to self-govern their own systems. By elevating local voices, this study offers insights on impacts of off-grid electrification within a top-down and an energy commons framework.

The concept of ocean as Common is well established in Eastern Indonesia, such as Sasi (from Maluku to West Papua), Muro (East Nusa Tenggara), and Lilifuk (Kupang). These concepts shared basic ideas that encompass the regulation of fishing seasons, the techniques and technologies employed, the targeted species, and the location of the ocean by the Indigenous Community (Bayley & Zerner 1991). Despite ongoing discussions regarding definitions, practices, and possible injustices (Pannel, 1997), the long-standing connection Indigenous communities have with the ocean demonstrates that it is certainly not viewed as an empty space. This is particularly important when faced with new discourses such as marine renewable energy, where the socio-cultural relations of indigenous peoples and their environment are often considered empty - or ignored by more powerful actors (Tsing, 2003).
The MRE development discourse is one of the government’s priorities. To provide some background, the Indonesian government aims for net-zero emissions by 2060, which includes a focus on renewable energy. By 2025, renewable sources are anticipated to make up 23% of the nation's energy mix. Consequently, various MRE projects are generating public discussions, including proposals for constructing a tidal bridge/tidal power plant in Nusa Tenggara. Such debates over tidal energy have sparked discussions among Indigenous/coastal communities who are conscious of the significance of land, sea, rituals, and other related aspects. Drawing from preliminary observations and interviews from a short ethnography conducted in October – and the forthcoming research next year, this presentation paper will explore Indigenous peoples' views and imaginations regarding these matters.

Struggles for public power are a key terrain of struggle in energy transitions, and can be regarded as campaigns for energy commoning. This talk examines three urban social movements for public and democratic control of energy — in Berlin, Minneapolis, and Rochester, NY — that the panelist has direct experience with, and argues that they are attempts to bring movement-based conceptions of energy democracy into urban political institutions that can be seen as attempts for both commoning and moments of politics.

The movements have demanded public utilities advance just urban energy transitions, but more than that, they demanded grassroots participation in and benefit from those transitions. This instituted a demand for self-determination and social control over publicly owned goods (energy utilities). The movements therefore tried to transform state institutions and change what is thought necessary for sustainable energy transitions. This approach to urban energy transitions is unique in combining democratic demands that attempt to re-make the how of local politics and institutions. This remaking is explained as an attempt to institute practices of commoning.

I develop this argument by showing how these movements undertook unique strategies that attempted to shift the boundaries of the politically possible and advance specific visions of commoning energy that could extend towards broader socio-ecological and democratic transformation. By conceiving of the state as an open terrain of struggle, it is possible to see practices of commoning in, against, and beyond the state (Cumbers 2015, Angel 2017 and 2019). However, to do so, I advance that movements must also achieve moments of politics in a Rancierian sense, or rupture in the idea of what is possible and what the state must respond to.

In these efforts, movements have had mixed success, showing the entrenched market power of investor owned utilities, especially in the US. Through in-depth participatory case studies including roles as a movement practitioner, this contribution can examine how these movements succeeded in creating politics around energy issues and forcing the hand of local governments. If movements aim to win the right to govern and to common energy, there must be a broader discussion of and support for these movements to overcome immense obstacles of consolidated financial and political power.

The transition to renewable energy has meant incremental growth in solar, wind, and energy transmission infrastructure in rural communities across the United States. As the interests of large-scale energy companies conflict with that of rural land users, politicians, and landowners, new energy infrastructure has often led to protests, lawsuits, and legislation. Despite the national influence of partisan politics and the current state of political polarization, opposition to energy infrastructure often combines left-and right-wing anti-establishment politics. Bipartisan alignments are influenced by common frustrations with perceived unfair decision making, threats to land, attachments to place, and lack of compensation or cost savings. The Inflation Reduction Act incentives are accelerating the energy transition and led to calls for regulatory reform, in part to limit the power of NIMBY obstructionists. Yet silencing opposition to new projects also means ignoring critiques of a top-down profit-driven energy transition. This paper thus draws attention to the hidden calls for an energy commons in public opposition to renewable energy infrastructure. I draw from 2019 and 2020 ethnographic research conducted in with opponents to New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC), an energy transmission project connecting Quebec hydropower to southern New England. In this case, the belief that the project was driven by the financial interests of government and corporate actors fueled years-long opposition. The anti-establishment politics of NECEC opponents, distrust of energy companies, and high electric bills in turn fueled support for a 2023 referendum calling for the formation of a consumer-owned organization that would buy the existing electrical utility companies. Though neither of these efforts were successful, I will demonstrate that understanding potential for energy commons in the US depends on listening to renewable energy opponents.