Community Energy Literature Review

In July 2022 the BBC’s business editor outlined plans for the biggest upgrade of the UK’s electricity network in sixty years (Jack, 2022). The expansion would allow an increase in the number of onshore and offshore wind turbines from 11,000, producing “nearly a quarter of the UK's electricity”, to a 2030 total which the National Grid electricity system operator believed would “deliver 50GW of offshore wind power … a third of the UK's electricity demand”. The £54bn project was not without opposition, for example to the building of a 110-mile line of 50m high pylons across East Anglian countryside. In May 2023 National Grid issued a press release setting out its case for the reforms needed to drive the energy transition, the “priority actions to ensure the networks can play their full role in achieving net zero” ( National Grid, 2023a). The five priorities are reform of the planning system, centred around a strategic clean energy vision; ensuring that the regulatory and governa

A straightforward view of the importance of narrative in relation to climate change is made by Rosenberg, 2023, who refers to the dangers posed by human-induced climate change, and states that “Communicating this issue beyond the scientific community is a complex and difficult endeavor. Climate change is unfolding on a time scale that is difficult for humans to grasp and comprehend.” She claims that “Storytelling has the power to invoke emotions, increase knowledge, and inspire action” and outlines a project that will “create a bridge that connects people to the world of climate change science and those who dedicate themselves to its pursuit.” In his additional chapters to ‘Orality and Literacy’ (Ong, 2013) John Hartley touches on general aspects of the power of narrative and its medium. He touches on the abstraction of writing and print from the immediacy of speech, the formation of the modern mind “in the crucible of language”, the determination of mind by medium, the soft power of