Envisioning energy futures through visual images: What would a commons-based energy system look like?

Abstract

This article creates a visual representation of a near-future landscape through an energy justice framework, presenting a commons-based energy system. We depict a landscape encompassing urban, suburban, rural, and natural areas, featuring interconnected initiatives such as energy cooperatives, makerspaces, open-source enterprises, and “renewable” energy facilities. This ecosystem of community-driven resources may address core principles of energy justice, including availability, affordability, transparency, and sustainability. However, realising this vision requires navigating challenges such as ensuring inclusion of marginalised groups, balancing local autonomy with broader coordination, and operating within the constraints of the dominant capitalist political economy. The transformative potential of the energy commons lies in its prefigurative politics, constructing new energy subjectivities, relations, and infrastructures that make a more just and sustainable future tangible and actionable in the present. We conclude that while a commons-based energy system offers promise in addressing energy injustices concerns, its implementation demands careful consideration of socio-economic realities. We call for further participatory action research and policy development to cultivate the energy commons as a catalyst for urgent societal transformations in the face of climate change and growing global inequities.