New roles for intermediaries: the case of community-owned solar energy development

This dissertation explores the ways that intermediary organizations of various kinds have helped to promote community-owned solar energy development in the United States. These organizations play a much wider range of facilitative roles than most other mediating organizations have traditionally played in the public sector over the past several decades in America. Until recently, energy development in the United States has been dominated by private investors and government regulators, particularly those focused on the construction and operation of investor-owned fossil fuel facilities. Now that renewable energy is economically competitive, indeed in 2020 about 20% of all new electricity produced in the United States was generated from renewable sources, up by 9% from 2019 including small-scale solar (EIA 2022), new investors and new regulators have inserted themselves into the energy development process. Given its ease of installation, solar energy is an attractive option, and many communities are seeking to own and operate new facilities; but, despite its increasing financial competitiveness and recent technology improvements, it is often unclear to many communities, particularly those that are under-resourced, the steps they must take to own and operate solar facilities of their own. Based on interviews with 28 intermediary organizations and surveys of more than 300 members of community solar cooperatives in 15 states, I have been able to determine that intermediary organizations involved in promoting communityowned solar energy development have moved beyond the purely “neutral” facilitating roles that other public dispute mediators have traditionally played. Instead, they have been successful by focusing on (1) enhancing community understanding of the solar energy status-quo (i.e., production and distribution options); (2) informing project design and financing efforts, (3) providing procedural guidance; (4) helping to promote changes in local, state, and federal policies and programs, and (5) supporting local organizational and political capacity-building. Intermediaries in the community solar context include community-owned cooperatives and energy justice organizations along with a variety of governmental support offices. From the data I have collected, I think it is fair to say that community solar focused intermediaries are working primarily to empower under-resourced and under-represented communities by helping them move toward community ownership. They empower communities by helping them apply technical information, mobilize networks and partnerships, and build local movements to promote distributed, decentralized, and democratized energy systems.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Chun, Jungwoo

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Susskind, Lawrence

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
• Copyright retained by author(s)

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/152446

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/152446