6
It is crucial to unpack this tension between a ‘good enough’ status quo
that has lingered for years and the promise of upcoming large-scale dynamism in order to understand the changing energy sector and the adaptive
behaviour of various stakeholders. What is the underlying normative commitment—what suffices and why, and by contrast, what catalyses change
and when? Does Portugal exemplify a sustainable energy transition underway? Or does it normalise something well short of reasonable action, simply because legal and discursive space permit it without sufficiently rigorous
tests (Dansou and Langley 2012)? These questions approach the nub of
the argument presented below: in the Portuguese case of gradual solar
uptake as in most current energy transitions, we know what the problem
is, we know a good deal about how to solve it and yet do little about it,
and this disjuncture is a crisis of accountability (Mason 2008).
From the normative standpoint of decarbonisation, Portugal should be
putting all the weight it can behind rapid, even exponential, solar uptake,
dealing with its disruptive effects head-on in order to decarbonise quickly.
Adding an equity dimension, it should be encouraging a vibrant public
debate about how to ensure that such a sectoral transition enhances social
equity or at least does not work against it. Till recently, these discussions
barely existed, and as they emerge, they play out amongst ‘experts’ and
those who often represent specific stakes in the sector (cf. West and Davis
2011). There has been at best a fringe discussion on various public stakes
in energy transitions and the necessity for a solar energy transition to happen rapidly and to produce public benefits (Delicado et al. 2014; Sareen
and Haarstad 2018)—both in terms of enhancing current social equity
and by way of securing improved intergenerational equity through climate
change mitigation.
What does solar energy have to do with social equity? Within Europe,
Portugal has one of the highest national rates of energy poverty, a condition whereby people cannot secure adequate home energy services. Some
800,000 of the country’s ten million residents avail subsidised electricity
tariffs. Yet, the current energy sector regime does not incentivise ‘prosuming’, or selling solar energy back to the grid. It mainly promotes selfconsumption (Camilo et al. 2017), which does not appeal much to small
households considering installing rooftop solar panels when they are usually not at home during peak solar generation hours. Nor does the national
framework support community energy, and Portugal’s first solar energy
cooperative in Lisbon has struggled to gain recognition as an electricity
supplier in order to increase the benefits its members can access from the
S. SAREEN
It is crucial to unpack this tension between a ‘good enough’ status quo
that has lingered for years and the promise of upcoming large-scale dynamism in order to understand the changing energy sector and the adaptive
behaviour of various stakeholders. What is the underlying normative commitment—what suffices and why, and by contrast, what catalyses change
and when? Does Portugal exemplify a sustainable energy transition underway? Or does it normalise something well short of reasonable action, simply because legal and discursive space permit it without sufficiently rigorous
tests (Dansou and Langley 2012)? These questions approach the nub of
the argument presented below: in the Portuguese case of gradual solar
uptake as in most current energy transitions, we know what the problem
is, we know a good deal about how to solve it and yet do little about it,
and this disjuncture is a crisis of accountability (Mason 2008).
From the normative standpoint of decarbonisation, Portugal should be
putting all the weight it can behind rapid, even exponential, solar uptake,
dealing with its disruptive effects head-on in order to decarbonise quickly.
Adding an equity dimension, it should be encouraging a vibrant public
debate about how to ensure that such a sectoral transition enhances social
equity or at least does not work against it. Till recently, these discussions
barely existed, and as they emerge, they play out amongst ‘experts’ and
those who often represent specific stakes in the sector (cf. West and Davis
2011). There has been at best a fringe discussion on various public stakes
in energy transitions and the necessity for a solar energy transition to happen rapidly and to produce public benefits (Delicado et al. 2014; Sareen
and Haarstad 2018)—both in terms of enhancing current social equity
and by way of securing improved intergenerational equity through climate
change mitigation.
What does solar energy have to do with social equity? Within Europe,
Portugal has one of the highest national rates of energy poverty, a condition whereby people cannot secure adequate home energy services. Some
800,000 of the country’s ten million residents avail subsidised electricity
tariffs. Yet, the current energy sector regime does not incentivise ‘prosuming’, or selling solar energy back to the grid. It mainly promotes selfconsumption (Camilo et al. 2017), which does not appeal much to small
households considering installing rooftop solar panels when they are usually not at home during peak solar generation hours. Nor does the national
framework support community energy, and Portugal’s first solar energy
cooperative in Lisbon has struggled to gain recognition as an electricity
supplier in order to increase the benefits its members can access from the
S. SAREEN