Struggle over energy transition in Berlin: How do grassroots initiatives affect local energy policy-making?

•Grassroots initiatives as actors with countervailing power in local energy policy.•They increase citizens׳ awareness and impact the action of the local government.•Grids as objects of struggle between competing visions of energy transition.•Urban context is both a resource and a constraint for grassroots initiatives action.

This paper examines the growing role of grassroots initiatives in the governance of urban energy systems. In recent years, research has increasingly underlined the potential for sustainable innovation of community-led bottom-up actions but has at the same time underestimated their potential impact on the governance of energy systems. Based on a strategic action field framework (SAF), this paper analyses the conflicts over the remunicipalisation of Berlin׳s electricity grid and investigates the creation and strategic development of two grassroots initiatives as well as their interaction with the local government and the established grid operator. We argue that grassroots initiatives have an important impact on the local energy system, not just through their influence on the implementation of local energy policy but above all by their framing of a specific vision of a local energy transition. The paper discusses the scope and limits of such initiatives in an urban context.