[Music]
what’s missing from Community Energy
planning today it’s simple
community voices as our introduced me
you thing that I’ve had a very
background so I’ve looked at the issue
of Community Energy planning in lots of
different ways as an engineer as an
architect and now as a social scientist
and what I’ve come to realize and what
I’ve come here to talk to all of you
about today is that communities and
individuals within communities are in
fact experts in their energy needs I’ve
also realized that integrating social
science into Community Energy planning
can allow communities through sharing
the through stories to play an important
role in planning for their energy future
now this is so no simple task because
integrating social science into energy
planning is very difficult and and this
is because the social scientists we
don’t just construct or retain stories
we try to learn from stories that are
shared with us to contribute to a better
world and this is something that is very
challenging and time-consuming because
we have to spend time meeting with
people listening to their stories and
then creating a narrative for a
community but what’s so beneficial about
including social science and Community
Energy planning is that it gives a
broader context to the issue and also
can help communities voices be heard and
this realization came about because of a
small group of people on a small island
on the edge of Europe so this group of
people very kindly offered to help me
with my PhD research in G MIT and there
were also a very ambitious group of
people and they wanted to prove that
they could plan for their energy future
too so this research was undertaken an
initiator Island which is an island of
280 people and this talk won’t just
recount the process of the research
which most academics tend to do but I’ll
also talk about the lessons that I
learned I’ll talk about the stories that
were shared with me the people that I
met but more importantly how together we
actually constructed a vision for their
energy future
so communities and individuals within
communities through sharing their
stories through sharing their visions
for the lives kind of lights they want
to lead can actually contribute
effectively to designing their own
energy futures and at the moment when
most of us and most of you go to think
about Community Energy planning we think
about experts as being those people with
technical expertise so for example
engineers or architects but the idea
I’ve come here to talk to you about
today is that we should really redefine
how we really rethink how we define the
energy experts and begin to acknowledge
the people like you and people like in
within communities they’re actually
experts and what they need because
they’re experts in how they live their
lives so for anyone who has read Malcolm
Gladwell Malcolm Gladwell’s book
outliers when referencing an old iron
Anders Ericsson fable he talks about how
it takes about 10,000 hours to become an
expert in something so if you think
about that that means that you were
working for 40 hours a week 2,000 hours
a year that’s about five years training
in something but then if you think about
living within a community effectively
when you’ve spent then over a year
living in a community you’re pretty much
an expert in that community you’re an
expert in its networks and it’s
organizations and as well with it with
how the individuals within that
community live their lives so having
looked at this issue in many different
ways over the years and finally arriving
at social science is the answer and it
wasn’t until meeting the participants of
the study and in this year and listening
to all of their stories on how they used
energy that I began to realize that no
matter who you are no matter where
you’re from no matter what discipline
you’re in or old people and we all
understand energy very differently and
this depends on our lives and where we
stand in relation to it as well so again
the stories that were shared with me
have me to realize that energy is a
function of who we are and how we live
our lives that everyone can talk about
energy and that
in order to do effective Community
Energy planning we must not alone
understand energy but we must understand
individuals we must understand what
shapes us we must understand the
communities that were a part of we must
understand the ties that bond us all
together and the stories that mold us so
and also to understand that we can all
talk about energy we might not know the
jargon but when we talk about the things
that we do every day were effectively
talking about how we use energy and this
is nowhere more evident than somewhere
like in an island community where their
unique landscape and geographic
isolation means that they use energy in
very different ways than mainline
communities so that was the reason why
in a shear island was chosen as a case
study for the study and because from a
social scientific perspective at a very
unique landscape and as well all of the
energy that was used on the island was
imported so that could be easily met
easily measured as well and more
importantly it was the community
themselves so initiators an
irish-speaking Island but not alone that
they’re very proactive when it comes to
their energy planning so for example in
this study the participants that took
part and volunteered and willingly
volunteered to take part in the study
represented almost 30 percent of the
islands population that really reflects
how important to them securing their
energy future was so in order for the
process of Community Energy planning to
be Croke creative which meant that the
community and I work together as equals
it was important that I wore all of my
hats my transdisciplinary hats so the
architects had the engineer hat and as
well the social scientists and this was
done so that the conversations that we
had could be natural that they could
flow between the different topics of
energy planning quite easily and it
might seem like something natural to you
guys but in Community Energy planning
this is really rare because these kind
of studies are normally engineering
based and social science very often
omitted as well and to my knowledge
there’s been no other studies mixed
method study similar to this undertaken
and that’s because
Community Energy planning and
integrating into this is time-consuming
and most of the work in this actual
study involved the social scientific
aspects of the study so I met with
people I visited their homes I met my
families their families spent hours
listening to their stories and listening
to their perceptions on how Island life
impacts how they use energy and they
also explained to me that they felt
their life would be an awful lot better
if this was an if this influenced their
energy time um and has to be remembered
that months were spent gathering these
dayss months will spend speaking to
these people and also months was spent
analyzing the data as well in order to
create a narrative for the community and
how they use energy um obviously it was
an energy plan so it was important to
include engineering techniques as well
this is an example a sketch of what and
their yearly electricity demand profile
looks like so looking at this you can
see that during the summer months in the
middle of this huge Peaks and energy
demands and so here to look at this
without any understanding of the context
to this the broader context of it you
might question what’s happening but
because of the area of the months of
interviews that were undertaken I knew
that this was because of the high influx
of tourists into the island on the
summer months up to a hundred thousand
people convenient visit and in this year
every year so imagine a goes from a
population of 280 up to up to 5,000
today for example and this is an example
of information and context to some
technical data that might not be under
suitable wasn’t for including
communities knowledge into the process
and it’s important to remember as well
but as a technical experts or an
outsider coming into a community there’s
always going to be knowledge that’s
beyond your grasp that if you come and
you visit a community for a short period
of time and you insert yourself into
that community that’s not enough to
understand the real needs of that
community and there will always be local
knowledge beyond your grasp and this was
reflective in many of the stories of the
participants shared with
me so I spent along a lot of time out
there when I was doing my PhD and I
really began to realize how important
they’re linked mainland Ireland was and
how important the boast was which seems
like something you might not consider
there’s only a couple of boats that
leave every day and if you miss that
boat you might miss a day and work on
the mainland you might miss being able
to get in to get your shopping you might
miss your doctor’s appointments and this
meant that the community had to organize
themselves an awful lot better because
if you missed that boat you’re in
trouble and there’s lots of the
participants spoke about this but one
participant in two in particular said
that when she moved to the island she
was thirty and she got married and and
when she moved there it was very
difficult for her because the ferry only
came twice a day and she said she
realized that living on an island you
have to organize yourself a lot better
and she said that was the biggest
difference and another thing about the
community and in this year is that
they’re very proactive they’re very
engaged and they’re very ambitious and
but they’re also very honest and this
came across several times and they were
really open about sharing their ideas
for their energy future but they’re also
willing to be very honest even if you
something as a research you didn’t
necessarily want to hear and several of
them spoke about island life and how
it’s really difficult for experts to
fully understand and one of them in
particular said to me I don’t care how
many masters or PhDs you have you’ve
really got to live here to understand
and other participants also spoke about
this reliance on that connection to
mainland Ireland and how that impact is
how they used energy how they thought
about energy but also had they thought
about other resources it’s difficult for
us to understand that if there’s going
to be bad weather for a while this might
actually mean that you can’t catch your
cold or you can’t get your bread or you
can’t get the food that you need so lots
the participants spoke about how they
use what they call backup plans and and
several them spoke about the head they
had more than one freezer I thought this
was really hard I fight us every one of
three freezers and it was only after
discussing it with them that they
explained that what they do is they tend
to stock up on food for up to ten weeks
in advance which seemed crazy to me but
they explained them that there’s some
times in the summer where you’re busy or
you might miss the Bolger there might be
increment weather and they can’t get Ike
to get their new food stocks and it’s
also impact of the kind of technologies
that they chose to put into their homes
for example one of the participants said
that lots of people have several
different ways of heating their water
she said that lots of people have the
have oil and they also have a motion
just in case the oil goes and then other
people often have a fire with the back
burner as well just to be sure to be
sure and this also impacted choices and
decisions and perceptions of new
technologies and particularly when it
came to transports so for example there
had been a study on the pilot on the
island for electric cars and it seemed
like this was the perfect location for
electric cars because of the short
distances but the reality of the
electric car wasn’t very successful
there according to the participants
because they felt it didn’t meet their
needs I mean they tend to carry both
Goods down from the ferry and as well if
the car’s broke down there was nobody on
the island for the skills to fix them
and one of the participants spoke about
this saying that a lot of people on the
island tend to buy the old cars because
we prefer them he said at least with the
older models he could nearly hit them
with a hammer he spoke about how with
the newer models it’s pretty much a
laptop unions so having spent months
gathering this data months analyzing
this data and narrative was developed
for the community for what they might
actually need from an energy plan and
then in order for this to inform the
technical side of the study and a tale a
series of carry of desired
characteristics for what they might need
from an energy plan was developed and
these were several of these but these
are a snippet of some of them ranging
from the communities can fix
technologies themselves to a desire from
energy independence which is quite
understandable when you think of their
reliance on mainland Ireland and so the
end of this study was it was considered
to be a relatively successful study
because at the end of the participants
themselves stated that they had enjoyed
the process that they had felt like
their ideas and
contributions had been acknowledged and
listened to and also a series of
different technical plans were developed
the community and I worship workshops on
these together and they selected one for
future work as well which they said they
were quite happy with so having
completed that research it was time to
move on to the next phase of my career
so I’m currently working as a post op
researcher and Enya I go away on the
energized project and what’s so
interesting about this project is
looking at similar topics looking at her
culture and social and influences impact
or energies and it’s doing this across
Europe which is fascinating so this
project argues that cultural change has
an influence on energy use as well but
in terms of Community Energy planning
how does this research and the research
in the PhD actually impact on us and
what lessons have I learned well one of
the main lessons I’ve learned is that
it’s important for us no matter it’s
important for us to break down the
boundaries between identities between
disciplines between communities and
between experts doing that can open up a
dialogue that can reveal the capacity of
communities to engage in planning for
their future it’s important to us to
acknowledge the communities do have
valuable knowledge and what can you do
to change the future of Community Energy
planning well what you can do is you can
get involved in planning for your
community’s energy future and you can
know that your knowledge is valuable and
what you have to say can make a
difference you can believe that you are
the experts in your energy needs in your
lives and you can also believe the
communities can have a voice and
planning for your energy future and you
can make your voices heard thank you
[Applause]
you
you
what’s missing from Community Energy
planning today it’s simple
community voices as our introduced me
you thing that I’ve had a very
background so I’ve looked at the issue
of Community Energy planning in lots of
different ways as an engineer as an
architect and now as a social scientist
and what I’ve come to realize and what
I’ve come here to talk to all of you
about today is that communities and
individuals within communities are in
fact experts in their energy needs I’ve
also realized that integrating social
science into Community Energy planning
can allow communities through sharing
the through stories to play an important
role in planning for their energy future
now this is so no simple task because
integrating social science into energy
planning is very difficult and and this
is because the social scientists we
don’t just construct or retain stories
we try to learn from stories that are
shared with us to contribute to a better
world and this is something that is very
challenging and time-consuming because
we have to spend time meeting with
people listening to their stories and
then creating a narrative for a
community but what’s so beneficial about
including social science and Community
Energy planning is that it gives a
broader context to the issue and also
can help communities voices be heard and
this realization came about because of a
small group of people on a small island
on the edge of Europe so this group of
people very kindly offered to help me
with my PhD research in G MIT and there
were also a very ambitious group of
people and they wanted to prove that
they could plan for their energy future
too so this research was undertaken an
initiator Island which is an island of
280 people and this talk won’t just
recount the process of the research
which most academics tend to do but I’ll
also talk about the lessons that I
learned I’ll talk about the stories that
were shared with me the people that I
met but more importantly how together we
actually constructed a vision for their
energy future
so communities and individuals within
communities through sharing their
stories through sharing their visions
for the lives kind of lights they want
to lead can actually contribute
effectively to designing their own
energy futures and at the moment when
most of us and most of you go to think
about Community Energy planning we think
about experts as being those people with
technical expertise so for example
engineers or architects but the idea
I’ve come here to talk to you about
today is that we should really redefine
how we really rethink how we define the
energy experts and begin to acknowledge
the people like you and people like in
within communities they’re actually
experts and what they need because
they’re experts in how they live their
lives so for anyone who has read Malcolm
Gladwell Malcolm Gladwell’s book
outliers when referencing an old iron
Anders Ericsson fable he talks about how
it takes about 10,000 hours to become an
expert in something so if you think
about that that means that you were
working for 40 hours a week 2,000 hours
a year that’s about five years training
in something but then if you think about
living within a community effectively
when you’ve spent then over a year
living in a community you’re pretty much
an expert in that community you’re an
expert in its networks and it’s
organizations and as well with it with
how the individuals within that
community live their lives so having
looked at this issue in many different
ways over the years and finally arriving
at social science is the answer and it
wasn’t until meeting the participants of
the study and in this year and listening
to all of their stories on how they used
energy that I began to realize that no
matter who you are no matter where
you’re from no matter what discipline
you’re in or old people and we all
understand energy very differently and
this depends on our lives and where we
stand in relation to it as well so again
the stories that were shared with me
have me to realize that energy is a
function of who we are and how we live
our lives that everyone can talk about
energy and that
in order to do effective Community
Energy planning we must not alone
understand energy but we must understand
individuals we must understand what
shapes us we must understand the
communities that were a part of we must
understand the ties that bond us all
together and the stories that mold us so
and also to understand that we can all
talk about energy we might not know the
jargon but when we talk about the things
that we do every day were effectively
talking about how we use energy and this
is nowhere more evident than somewhere
like in an island community where their
unique landscape and geographic
isolation means that they use energy in
very different ways than mainline
communities so that was the reason why
in a shear island was chosen as a case
study for the study and because from a
social scientific perspective at a very
unique landscape and as well all of the
energy that was used on the island was
imported so that could be easily met
easily measured as well and more
importantly it was the community
themselves so initiators an
irish-speaking Island but not alone that
they’re very proactive when it comes to
their energy planning so for example in
this study the participants that took
part and volunteered and willingly
volunteered to take part in the study
represented almost 30 percent of the
islands population that really reflects
how important to them securing their
energy future was so in order for the
process of Community Energy planning to
be Croke creative which meant that the
community and I work together as equals
it was important that I wore all of my
hats my transdisciplinary hats so the
architects had the engineer hat and as
well the social scientists and this was
done so that the conversations that we
had could be natural that they could
flow between the different topics of
energy planning quite easily and it
might seem like something natural to you
guys but in Community Energy planning
this is really rare because these kind
of studies are normally engineering
based and social science very often
omitted as well and to my knowledge
there’s been no other studies mixed
method study similar to this undertaken
and that’s because
Community Energy planning and
integrating into this is time-consuming
and most of the work in this actual
study involved the social scientific
aspects of the study so I met with
people I visited their homes I met my
families their families spent hours
listening to their stories and listening
to their perceptions on how Island life
impacts how they use energy and they
also explained to me that they felt
their life would be an awful lot better
if this was an if this influenced their
energy time um and has to be remembered
that months were spent gathering these
dayss months will spend speaking to
these people and also months was spent
analyzing the data as well in order to
create a narrative for the community and
how they use energy um obviously it was
an energy plan so it was important to
include engineering techniques as well
this is an example a sketch of what and
their yearly electricity demand profile
looks like so looking at this you can
see that during the summer months in the
middle of this huge Peaks and energy
demands and so here to look at this
without any understanding of the context
to this the broader context of it you
might question what’s happening but
because of the area of the months of
interviews that were undertaken I knew
that this was because of the high influx
of tourists into the island on the
summer months up to a hundred thousand
people convenient visit and in this year
every year so imagine a goes from a
population of 280 up to up to 5,000
today for example and this is an example
of information and context to some
technical data that might not be under
suitable wasn’t for including
communities knowledge into the process
and it’s important to remember as well
but as a technical experts or an
outsider coming into a community there’s
always going to be knowledge that’s
beyond your grasp that if you come and
you visit a community for a short period
of time and you insert yourself into
that community that’s not enough to
understand the real needs of that
community and there will always be local
knowledge beyond your grasp and this was
reflective in many of the stories of the
participants shared with
me so I spent along a lot of time out
there when I was doing my PhD and I
really began to realize how important
they’re linked mainland Ireland was and
how important the boast was which seems
like something you might not consider
there’s only a couple of boats that
leave every day and if you miss that
boat you might miss a day and work on
the mainland you might miss being able
to get in to get your shopping you might
miss your doctor’s appointments and this
meant that the community had to organize
themselves an awful lot better because
if you missed that boat you’re in
trouble and there’s lots of the
participants spoke about this but one
participant in two in particular said
that when she moved to the island she
was thirty and she got married and and
when she moved there it was very
difficult for her because the ferry only
came twice a day and she said she
realized that living on an island you
have to organize yourself a lot better
and she said that was the biggest
difference and another thing about the
community and in this year is that
they’re very proactive they’re very
engaged and they’re very ambitious and
but they’re also very honest and this
came across several times and they were
really open about sharing their ideas
for their energy future but they’re also
willing to be very honest even if you
something as a research you didn’t
necessarily want to hear and several of
them spoke about island life and how
it’s really difficult for experts to
fully understand and one of them in
particular said to me I don’t care how
many masters or PhDs you have you’ve
really got to live here to understand
and other participants also spoke about
this reliance on that connection to
mainland Ireland and how that impact is
how they used energy how they thought
about energy but also had they thought
about other resources it’s difficult for
us to understand that if there’s going
to be bad weather for a while this might
actually mean that you can’t catch your
cold or you can’t get your bread or you
can’t get the food that you need so lots
the participants spoke about how they
use what they call backup plans and and
several them spoke about the head they
had more than one freezer I thought this
was really hard I fight us every one of
three freezers and it was only after
discussing it with them that they
explained that what they do is they tend
to stock up on food for up to ten weeks
in advance which seemed crazy to me but
they explained them that there’s some
times in the summer where you’re busy or
you might miss the Bolger there might be
increment weather and they can’t get Ike
to get their new food stocks and it’s
also impact of the kind of technologies
that they chose to put into their homes
for example one of the participants said
that lots of people have several
different ways of heating their water
she said that lots of people have the
have oil and they also have a motion
just in case the oil goes and then other
people often have a fire with the back
burner as well just to be sure to be
sure and this also impacted choices and
decisions and perceptions of new
technologies and particularly when it
came to transports so for example there
had been a study on the pilot on the
island for electric cars and it seemed
like this was the perfect location for
electric cars because of the short
distances but the reality of the
electric car wasn’t very successful
there according to the participants
because they felt it didn’t meet their
needs I mean they tend to carry both
Goods down from the ferry and as well if
the car’s broke down there was nobody on
the island for the skills to fix them
and one of the participants spoke about
this saying that a lot of people on the
island tend to buy the old cars because
we prefer them he said at least with the
older models he could nearly hit them
with a hammer he spoke about how with
the newer models it’s pretty much a
laptop unions so having spent months
gathering this data months analyzing
this data and narrative was developed
for the community for what they might
actually need from an energy plan and
then in order for this to inform the
technical side of the study and a tale a
series of carry of desired
characteristics for what they might need
from an energy plan was developed and
these were several of these but these
are a snippet of some of them ranging
from the communities can fix
technologies themselves to a desire from
energy independence which is quite
understandable when you think of their
reliance on mainland Ireland and so the
end of this study was it was considered
to be a relatively successful study
because at the end of the participants
themselves stated that they had enjoyed
the process that they had felt like
their ideas and
contributions had been acknowledged and
listened to and also a series of
different technical plans were developed
the community and I worship workshops on
these together and they selected one for
future work as well which they said they
were quite happy with so having
completed that research it was time to
move on to the next phase of my career
so I’m currently working as a post op
researcher and Enya I go away on the
energized project and what’s so
interesting about this project is
looking at similar topics looking at her
culture and social and influences impact
or energies and it’s doing this across
Europe which is fascinating so this
project argues that cultural change has
an influence on energy use as well but
in terms of Community Energy planning
how does this research and the research
in the PhD actually impact on us and
what lessons have I learned well one of
the main lessons I’ve learned is that
it’s important for us no matter it’s
important for us to break down the
boundaries between identities between
disciplines between communities and
between experts doing that can open up a
dialogue that can reveal the capacity of
communities to engage in planning for
their future it’s important to us to
acknowledge the communities do have
valuable knowledge and what can you do
to change the future of Community Energy
planning well what you can do is you can
get involved in planning for your
community’s energy future and you can
know that your knowledge is valuable and
what you have to say can make a
difference you can believe that you are
the experts in your energy needs in your
lives and you can also believe the
communities can have a voice and
planning for your energy future and you
can make your voices heard thank you
[Applause]
you
you
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