Participatory energy: Research, imaginaries and practices on people’ contribute to energy systems in the smart city

Scholarly research on smart cities already signalled that citizens’ engagement is a fundamental requisite for the achievement of a sustainable and inclusive urban development. Accordingly, transition towards a fossil fuel free future is not to be understood as a matter of techno-economic innovation but as a process in which the ‘social’ and the ‘technical’ are inextricably intertwined, and technologies co-evolve with programmes of governing. Research findings from a recent bibliometric study reveal a very different picture where city dwellers are rarely the subject of research into future energy plans for transition towards a fossil future free future. Instead the research publications tend to concentrate on technological innovation for energy production and consumption. The findings are a concern given that the transition towards a fossil fuel free future will have a greater likelihood of success with public engagement and public acceptance. The paper explores the current transformation of sociotechnical imaginaries towards a more participatory idea of smart cities that emerge from real-world practices; and the resistances and resiliencies to this transformation in research domain. We discuss the evidences emerging from the research on communities energy against the literature on smart energy system.