Community owned renewable energy (CORE) in Ireland’s energy transition: locating Homo curans in collective action

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dc.check.date2027-05-31
dc.contributor.advisorMullally, Gerard
dc.contributor.advisorDunphy, Niall
dc.contributor.authorCreed, Elizabethen
dc.contributor.funderSustainable Energy Authority of Ireland
dc.date.accessioned2026-01-23T15:23:42Z
dc.date.available2026-01-23T15:23:42Z
dc.date.issued2025
dc.date.submitted2025
dc.description.abstractThe development of the community owned renewable energy (CORE) sector in Ireland is explored in this research and the findings are used to reflect on the Irish energy transition through a sociological lens. The CORE story is examined using qualitative research with forty-six participants interviewed from across the pillars of community, state and market, and through content analysis of Irish strategy, policy and planning documents for references to community energy. This study elaborates how an empowered community pillar influenced the development of policy for CORE between 2004 and 2022 and explores aspects of social innovation evident within this nascent sector in Ireland. Social cohesion is required to tackle the challenge of climate change. This thesis argues that the community pillar puts a greater focus on social cohesion and to nurture this for an effective energy transition in Ireland requires resourced community connectors, facilitators for participatory spaces, and increased local governance. As local assets CORE and the mandated community benefit scheme within the Irish Renewable Energy Support Scheme (RESS) are creating exemplar empowered community forums. It is suggested that these spaces for local deliberation offer the possibility of transformative learning. Care of each other and of our shared home, is described as subjugated knowledge and these deliberative spaces create the opportunity for values and social norms embedded in care and cooperation to emerge as alternatives to individualism and competition. It is also proposed that there is a convergence of voices across disciplines, and across indigenous and academic knowledge, towards eco-social values with a focus on well-being rather than profit, on solidarity rather than who is ‘greatest’, and therein lies the possibility of an eco-cosmopolitanism.The emergence of a global citizen, and justice at this scale, will only be possible when increased cohesiveness is realised locally through collective action grounded in care. The energy transition in Ireland as it takes place in communities is creating the possibilities for such transformative spaces and through this study of the energy citizen and community energy in Ireland, evidence for the emergence of this eco-social citizen – Homo curans – is sought.en
dc.description.statusNot peer revieweden
dc.description.versionAccepted Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationCreed, E. 2025. Community owned renewable energy (CORE) in Ireland’s energy transition: locating Homo curans in collective action. PhD Thesis, University College Cork.
dc.identifier.endpage287
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/18451
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherUniversity College Corken
dc.relation.projectSustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (Research, Development and Demonstration Funding Programme, Grant no.18/RDD/386)
dc.rights© 2025, Elizabeth Creed.
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.subjectCommunity energy
dc.subjectEnergy citizen
dc.subjectHomo curans
dc.subjectEnergy transition
dc.subjectSocial innovation
dc.subjectCommunity empowerment
dc.subjectCollective action
dc.subjectEco-social citizen
dc.subjectCare
dc.subjectTransformation
dc.titleCommunity owned renewable energy (CORE) in Ireland’s energy transition: locating Homo curans in collective action
dc.typeDoctoral thesisen
dc.type.qualificationlevelDoctoralen
dc.type.qualificationnamePhD - Doctor of Philosophyen
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