Role of electric cooperatives in the Argentine energy system and contributions to popular energy transition processes

This research analyzes the role of electric cooperatives in Argentina as key actors in imagining a popular energy transition. Instead of thinking of the transition only as a technological change - moving from fossil to renewable energy sources - it approaches it as a political, social and territorial dispute over who decides, who accesses and how energy is organized. It then analyzes the history of electric cooperativism, and shows how these experiences played an important role in the democratization of the service, but also how they gradually lost autonomy in the face of concentration, reforms and the privatizing logic of the system. The research suggests that, despite their current limits, cooperatives can be strategic nodes for building more local, participatory and community-based energy systems.

To read Alejo di Risio's thesis follow this link.