Decentralized energy storage systems (ESS) are a promising means to more effectively match the supply and demand of fluctuating renewable energies. In most countries, however, ESS market share is small and whether or not the technology will attain a critical market share is subject to homeowners' investment decisions. For policy and industry alike, it is of particular interest to identify factors that drive ESS adoption. Empirically addressing this question, we hypothesized that the factors autarky and autonomy aspirations crucially determine ESS adoption decisions. In two studies (Ntotal = 489), sketching future decentralized energy scenarios, we found evidence for the importance of both factors for homeowners' evaluations of the technology. However, only autarky significantly affected homeowners' willingness to pay extra for ESS, in that homeowners invested more in the technology when autarky was higher (Study 1) or autarky benefits were emphasized (Study 2). In accordance with concepts aspiring to optimize energy flow on the low-voltage grid level (e.g. Smart Neighborhoods), we additionally examined the influence of autarky and autonomy aspirations on homeowners' willingness to exchange self-generated energy within a local energy network. Results showed that emphasis on autarky increased the subjective value of self-generated energy, decreasing the likelihood of peer-to-peer energy trading.

The development of decentralized renewable energy systems is of crucial importance for the decarbonization of energy generation worldwide. Purchase decisions regarding innovative energy systems depend to some extent on consumers' perception of the systems' degree of autarky. We assumed that, in addition to the energetic perspective, consumers associate other non-energetic facets such as independence, autonomy, self-sufficiency, or control with the concept of autarky. These psychological facets of autarky were expected to contribute to purchase decisions. In Study 1, participants (N = 168) evaluated three future energy supply scenarios. The scenarios varied regarding their range of autarky (household/neighborhood/small town), but the individually realized degree of energetic autarky did not vary. Participants reported a higher willingness to pay in connection with a higher perceived psychological autarky for the Household Scenario. Study 1's findings were confirmed by Study 2, in which qualitative interviews (N = 13) also revealed that participants favored the Household Scenario on several points. These evaluations were driven by the anticipated psychological facets of autarky that is the subjective perception of being independent, autonomous, self-sufficient, energy secure, and of control. To promote an adoption of renewable energy systems, these psychological autarky facets need to be addressed. Enabling the people to self-determine, control, and secure their energy provision even in complex organizational settings in such a manner is likely to increase their acceptance and therefore foster the required social transition as a whole.

Social learning studies emerged as part of the ecological economics research agenda rather recently. Questions of how human societies and organisations learn and transition on the basis of environmental knowledge relate to the core ideas of ecological economics with its pluralistic understanding of human behaviour in contrast to the limited focus on incentive-driven behaviour. Our study analyses the emergence and thematic foci of social learning studies within ecological economics over the past 15 years. We selected and analysed 54 articles published after peer review in established journals adhering to the epistemological tradition of ecological economics. This study is guided by the interest in how social learning is conceptualised, how this research is positioned in terms of process dynamics, causal factors and outcomes of learning. Results show, that the number of related papers grew substantially in recent years. Also the role of formal or informal institutions has been found to be a strong causal factor for social learning and change processes vis-A-vis technological, economic or political factors. In addition, there is a growing awareness of social learning processes in various environmental policy fields such as biodiversity governance, water and land management, fisheries, and climate adaptation. We conclude that these insights can give new impulses to research on socio-ecological transition and to the related debate on societal change and transformation processes as core topics for ecological economics. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.