University of British Columbia Press
Empowering Electricity
Co-operatives, Sustainability, and Power Sector Reform in Canada
Distributed for University of British Columbia Press
Empowering Electricity
Co-operatives, Sustainability, and Power Sector Reform in Canada
Since the 1990s, there has been an upsurge in renewable electricity co-operatives across Canada as hundreds of community organizations have turned to the sun, wind, and rivers as sources of local power generation. Empowering Electricity offers an illuminating analysis of these co-operatives within the context of larger debates over climate change, renewable electricity policy, sustainable community development, and provincial power-sector ownership. It looks at the conditions that led to this new wave of co-operative development, examines their form and location, and shines a light on the promises and challenges accompanying their development.
Table of Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
1 A Climate for Change
2 Governing Sustainability: From Crisis to Empowerment
3 Co-operatives in Canadian Political Economy
4 International Forces for Power-Sector Restructuring
5 Continental, Private, and Green(er)? Canadian Electricity Restructuring
6 Electricity Co-operatives: The Power of Public Policy
7 Off the Ground and on the Grid: New Electricity Co-operative Development
8 Co-operative Networks and the Politics of Community Power
9 Empowering Electricity
Appendices
Notes
Glossary
References
Index