Thirty-five years of research on energy and power: A landscape analysis
Reviewartikel, 2024

The urgent need to mitigate climate change and decarbonise the energy sector brings the risk that wider social and environmental concerns about the sustainability of energy systems are neglected. Countries may achieve decarbonization goals while reproducing or worsening the unequal distribution of access, opportunities, costs and burdens that is inherent to current energy systems. This study is motivated by the tension between visions for change towards sustainable energy systems and historic and contemporary inequities on the ground. The study contributes a quantitative, global-scope overview of existing research that places energy users and their lives at the centre of analysis for inclusive and equitable transitions. It further identifies the themes, concepts and perspectives that dominate scholarly debate and analyses the presence and relative influence of work that explicitly considers relations of power. The stepwise review uses the Scopus database and multiple bibliometric tools, covering the period until June 2022. It adopts a novel approach to identify dominant and marginal topics, geographical contexts and theoretical lenses employed including the uptake of critical social science approaches. The results indicate that dominant studies fail to engage critically with relationships of power. Even within the debate on “energy poverty”, work based in critical theory approaches account for less than seven percentages of the total body of work. For work on “energy justice” and users, four percentages of publications account for gender. The dominant language is technical and depoliticized. The study identifies research gaps and promising avenues for further research.

Critical theory

Energy poverty

Feminist theory

Energy policy

Energy justice

Nexus approach

Författare

Helene Ahlborg

Chalmers, Teknikens ekonomi och organisation, Environmental Systems Analysis

Kavya Michael

Chalmers, Teknikens ekonomi och organisation, Environmental Systems Analysis

Samuel John Unsworth

Chalmers, Teknikens ekonomi och organisation, Environmental Systems Analysis

Sylvere Hategekimana

University of Rwanda

Chalmers, Teknikens ekonomi och organisation, Environmental Systems Analysis

Olufolahan Osunmuyiwa

Chalmers, Teknikens ekonomi och organisation, Environmental Systems Analysis

The Institute for Management of Innovation and Technology (IMIT)

Anna Åberg

Chalmers, Teknikens ekonomi och organisation, Science, Technology and Society

Martin Hultman

Chalmers, Teknikens ekonomi och organisation, Science, Technology and Society

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

1364-0321 (ISSN) 18790690 (eISSN)

Vol. 199 114542

Energianvändning för alla: Makt- och genusperspektiv på användarlösningar för hållbara energitransitioner

Energimyndigheten, 2021-01-01 -- 2023-12-31.

Drivkrafter

Hållbar utveckling

Ämneskategorier

Tvärvetenskapliga studier

Styrkeområden

Energi

DOI

10.1016/j.rser.2024.114542

Mer information

Senast uppdaterat

2024-09-08