Energy Sovereignity
Sergio Tirado Herrero
Energy sovereignty is commonly defined as the right of individuals, communities, and nations to make autonomous decisions on the generation, distribution, and use of energy to meet their energy service needs in ways that are appropriate to their ecological, economic, social, and cultural conditions. As a concept situated at the intersection of eco-social activism and normatively oriented research, it refers to:
“projects and political visions oriented toward the equitable generation, distribution and control of energy sources by mobilized communities rooted ecologically and culturally, both urban and rural, in ways that do not harm others [communities and people] and that respect ecological cycles” (Del Bene et al., 2019, p. 178).
Energy sovereignty thus constitutes both an analytical and a normative framework that emphasizes the capacity to choose and act upon the various components of energy systems, from primary energy sources and technologies for resource extraction and transformation to the satisfaction of final energy service demands (Laldjebaev et al., 2015). It draws on a notion of sovereignty understood as a sufficient degree of self-determination and non-domination, that is, as the capacity to make and implement one’s own decisions without undue interference from external actors (Timmermann and Noboa, 2022).
The concept was first formulated by civil society organizations in Latin America during the 1990s, in response to the privatization of basic domestic services by transnational corporations and to multiple forms of extractivism, energy poverty, patriarchy, oligopoly, and conflict associated with fossil fuel extraction (Del Bene et al., 2019). As such, energy sovereignty articulates a claim for sustainable energy models and community control over energy systems aimed at protecting both the environment and local livelihoods from abuses by private corporations and state actors (Friends of the Earth, 2006). It also puts forward a broader transformative agenda in response to global environmental crises and associated inequalities, one that seeks to reconfigure structural patterns of energy consumption, curb corporate control over energy systems, and address the root causes of climate change (Moreno and Mittal, 2008). These early formulations were partly derived from, and connected to, the notion of food sovereignty, originally advanced by La Vía Campesina in the 1990s, which asserts the right of peoples to decide what food they consume and to control the means and systems of food production in accordance with the ecological possibilities of their territories (Laldjebaev et al., 2015).
In the specialized academic literature, energy sovereignty is often discussed in relation to energy security, which refers to the uninterrupted provision of vital energy services (Cherp et al., 2012) or, in a more elaborated formulation, to the continuous availability of energy in its various forms, in sufficient quantities and at reasonable prices, together with low vulnerability to supply disruptions and the sustained capacity to meet demand for energy services (UNDP, 2000). From a more operational perspective, energy security calls for the convergence of the four “As”: the physical or geological availability of energy resources, the geopolitical accessibility of those resources, the economic affordability of energy sources and services, and the environmental and social acceptability of the impacts derived from extracting, transforming, and using energy resources (Kruyt et al., 2009). The energy security perspective carries strong geopolitical connotations, as it is driven by a persistent concern over the vulnerability of national energy systems to supply disruptions, particularly in the case of fossil fuels.
When energy security is framed as a matter of national sovereignty, the emphasis is placed on external threats such as sabotage or terrorist attacks on energy infrastructure, import or export embargoes, and the abusive use of market dominance by external actors such as hostile states, terrorist groups, or unreliable foreign energy companies with excessive market power. In this sense, responses to threats to energy security involve risk-minimization strategies such as relying on more dependable exporters, diversifying energy sources, substituting imported energy with domestic resources, or exercising military, political, or economic control over the resources, territories, and infrastructures involved in energy provision (Cherp and Jewell, 2011).
Critical and emancipatory perspectives have questioned the framing of energy sovereignty through the lens of energy security. Whereas energy security tends to preserve the status quo by leaving unquestioned fossil fuel infrastructures, the elites associated with their exploitation, and dominant patterns of energy consumption; energy sovereignty offers a transformative framework of self-determination that seeks to reduce corporate control over the energy sector and energy resources while promoting structural change in energy systems and ways of life (Castán Broto, 2017; Moreno and Mittal, 2008). Furthermore, in contrast to the predominance of the national scale and national interests implicit in the energy security framework, energy sovereignty shifts attention towards the needs, preferences, and capabilities of people and communities situated in specific local contexts. It also foregrounds the rights, knowledge, and capacities of people as end users of energy and, taking local ecological conditions into account, seeks to determine which energy resources should be used, for what purposes, by whom, and in what ways (Laldjebaev et al., 2015).
Because energy sovereignty prioritizes equity in access to energy at the household and individual scales, it provides a more sensitive and potentially more effective framework for addressing energy poverty. It also advocates the democratization of energy systems and, therefore, calls for giving voice and decision-making power to the communities, households, and, ultimately, people who use energy in their everyday lives and are directly affected by the evolution and transformation of the energy sector (Castán Broto, 2017; Laldjebaev et al., 2015). Thus, it connects with the energy justice framework, which identifies three key analytical dimensions for advancing more equitable energy systems: (i) the fair distribution of the costs and benefits associated with the functioning of energy systems; (ii) equity in the recognition of the needs and perspectives of the multiple actors involved in and affected by energy systems; and (iii) equal participation in and influence over energy decision-making (Walker and Day, 2012).
Along these lines, eight guiding values of energy sovereignty have been proposed, emphasizing its ethical and social justice dimensions (Timmermann and Noboa, 2022): (i) accessibility, aimed at guaranteeing universal access to energy; (ii) empowerment and recognition, expressed in the form of collective capacities, useful knowledge about energy systems, and effective and equitable participation in their governance; (iii) responsible and sustainable management of decentralized renewable systems to minimize environmental impacts; (iv) self-sufficiency, intended to limit exposure to predatory corporate practices; (v) resilience, understood as the capacity to maintain energy provision in the face of socio-economic, political, or environmental disruptions; (vi) peace, as a commitment to energy provision systems based on non-hostile relations; (vii) transparency and self-determination, aimed at giving voice to underrepresented groups, strengthening democratic processes, and limiting corporate capture of decision-making; and (viii) gender justice, which recognizes women’s contribution to energy systems and seeks to remove barriers to their full participation.
These principles highlight the fundamentally communal character of energy sovereignty initiatives, which depend not only on appropriate technologies but also on responsibility, solidarity, social cohesion, and a willingness to cooperate if they are to be translated into meaningful practical advances (ibid.). Concrete experiences of energy sovereignty also find conceptual and methodological support in related frameworks such as energy democracy (Kanellou et al., 2023), energy citizenship (DellaValle and Czako, 2022), and energy communities (Hanke et al., 2026), all of which point towards more just and sustainable energy futures through the material and political reappropriation of energy provision infrastructures and decision-making.
Energy communities, as real-world experiments in energy sovereignty, prefigure concrete alternatives in the form of local, decentralized, democratic, and degrowth-compatible energy systems (Andreucci et al., 2025). They have the potential to generate a wide range of economic, environmental, and social benefits: they democratize energy, reduce dependence on and exposure to the market power of large energy suppliers, and can lower electricity bills, help alleviate energy poverty, and strengthen local productive networks and community social cohesion. They can further promote collective learning about energy generation and consumption and foster the participation of women and other underrepresented groups in the energy sector.
From an ecological justice perspective, energy sovereignty also calls for an ecologically and territorially responsible form of self-determination in the use of energy resources and technologies that avoids negative impacts on others (Castán Broto, 2017). This opens the door to considering non-human beings and to rethinking territory not as a mere repository of natural resources, including energy resources, but as a complex eco-social configuration in which multiple life projects, human and non-human alike, are rooted and sustained (Del Bene et al., 2019).
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