EXPERIMENTS FOR RESILIENT ENERGY & AGRICULTURE
Welcome to Regenerative Energy Communities! Based in Växjö, Sweden, this project explores how current energy paradigms can be challenged by energy approaches that work with agroecology and regenerative agriculture's central commitment of not only maintaining but actively reviving and enhancing the health and resilience of local ecosystems.
Funded by the Swedish Energy Agency, the project engages members of the public interested in the crucial problems of contemporary energy practices through creative, community-inspired experiments with alternative approaches to energy provision. This can include local farmers, growers and energy enthusiasts, but also anyone interested in collectively exploring what possible forms a regenerative energy practice might take.
Through a number of events, energy and agriculture open labs, podcast series (coming soon!), and free to replicate small-scale regenerative prototypes, we hope to collectively experiment with and share a range of regenerative energy practices, concepts and principles able to generate new and challenging perspectives on energy provision aimed at supporting just socioecological transformation.
ENERGY + AGRICULTURE OPEN LAB
Anyone interested in engaging with the issues of alternative energy and farming are welcome to visit our regular energy + agriculture open labs in Växjö, Sweden. Running approximately once a month (normally on a Tuesday from 15:00-18:00), the open lab is a place for discussion, questions and hands-on tinkering and sharing of ideas around alternative approaches to energy and agriculture. See the calendar for upcoming dates.
Outside of the scheduled open labs we also very much welcome visits to our studio space for learning more about the project and exploring ideas on enery and agriculture together. If you want to plan a visit or have questions regarding a specific Open Lab, just contact us!
WHO ARE WE WORKING WITH?
Our Project is partly located within the Brände Udde farm site hosted by VXO Farmlab, who describes themselves as: "a collective experimental urban farm space that explores local food economies, resilient food networks and regenerative cultural flourishings." VXO Farmlab follows in the footsteps of earlier active engagement with the Brände Udde site, especially the work of The Feminist Farmers and also the ongoing work of The Dirt.
Ongoing fieldnotes from us on prototyping, thoughts in the making, collaborations and other moments and works in progress!
LATEST
19 Jun
Presentation on “Windternet: Designing grid-liberated servers for regenerative energy communities” at LIMITS 2024 conference
14 Aug
Sharing of latest work on Windternet solar-wind turbine and server at Garden Futures: Designing with Nature exhibition at Vandalorum gallery in Värnamo.
REC LIVE
Cristina Cochior from the varia collective collaborated with us to setup a non-extractive, low energy regenerative media interface. Visit our REC x XMPP live feed for past and present photos from our ongoing work
PROTOTYPES
The project involves prototyping experiments aimed at exploring what forms regenerative energy alternatives might take. These include creative, community-inspired experiments with a series of low-cost, open-source microgeneration energy sources that can be readily reproduced and inspire further new perspectives on energy alternatives.
So far, we have been working on wind turbines grown from mycelium and making electricity from soil microbes and foraged for regenerative organic materials. Check out our prototyping page for documentation so you can make your own regenerative prototypes that will work in your growing setting.
REC PODCAST
Stay tuned for our Regenerative Energy Communities Podcast! We will be interviewing and curating discussions with practitioners working within concepts of regenerative design, sustainable agriculture, alternative energy systems and bio-friendly technologies.
