A short opinion piece, about energy fairness and cooperation as a consequence of local and time-of-use energy prices.
Local and time-of-use electricity prices can reduce energy bills, says a British think tank:
“Such a system would encourage electric car drivers in Cornwall to charge their vehicles when its sunny and those in Aberdeenshire to charge when it’s windy.”
We agree that there is a lot of potential in such an idea ― next to congestion improvements and better grid & generation development, such pricing would spur smarter decentralised decision-making and therefore higher usage of renewable energy.
But when I read this, another question came to my mind: How do we approach the fairness discussion? Living in a specific place or needing energy at a specific time makes your life or your house more expensive in this case.
We should start to develop communal solutions. Neighbourhood batteries are one example. Managing energy locally requires technology (and we believe open source is the best approach here), but also an organisation, take for instance the Bristol Energy Cooperative.
So we believe cooperation is the answer to the energy fairness question. What are your inspirations?
