International literature on citizen, local and community energy (LCE) has grown exponentially but has focussed on European and North American context. This paper contributes to understanding inclusivity in country-specific energy transition pathways, setting out an empirical analysis of grassroots energy innovation practices in a country that has to date followed an incumbent-led energy transition pathway – Aotearoa (New Zealand). A groundswell of emerging LCE initiatives face protracted feasibility stages and high failure rates, primarily due to lack of market access and risk exposure, and a lack of policy co-ordination and streamlining, with no popularised articulation of a collective energy transition strategy as such. Barring changes in discourse, regulation, and institutional arrangements, future LCE development is likely to be oriented primarily to accommodate utility-scale renewable energy through energy efficiency and demand side management. Within this unsupportive regime context however, we observe uniquely resourced forms of LCE, and identify strategies and policies for a more inclusive pathway. Our findings reveal the limits of grassroots agency and the dependence of wider diffusion of LCE on an enabling institutional context, suggesting there are understudied transition pathways in which opportunities for LCE are relatively constrained.

有关公民，当地和社区能源（LCE）的国际文献呈指数增长，但重点关注欧洲和北美。本文有助于理解特定国家的能源转换路径中的包容性，对迄今为止遵循现有主导的能源转换路径的国家Aotearoa（新西兰）进行了基层能源创新实践的实证分析。主要由于缺乏市场准入和风险敞口，缺乏政策协调和精简，没有普遍提出集体能源过渡战略，新兴的LCE计划面临长期的可行性阶段和高失败率。除非讨论，规章制度和体制安排发生变化，未来的LCE发展很可能主要通过提高能效和需求侧管理来适应公用事业规模的可再生能源。但是，在这种不支持政权的背景下，我们观察到了LCE独特资源的形式，并确定了更具包容性的途径的战略和政策。我们的发现揭示了基层代理机构的局限性以及LCE广泛传播对有利的机构环境的依赖，这表明存在相对不足的LCE机会受到限制的过渡途径。