Why neighbors matter in the energy transition: The diffusion of social practices, technologies, and knowledge between municipalities

• Spatial location influences the type of fuel and the technology for heating. • Peripheral locations demonstrate extensive use of low-quality fuels. • In certain areas traditional fuels and modern technologies are used in parallel. • The spatial clusters of heating fuels are in line with the energy ladder theory. • Spatially concentrated and localized energy policies are necessary for the energy transition. The energy transition requires new conceptual frames to understand the emergence of new spatial patterns and developing new geographies of energy. This article uses Hungary as a case study to examine the role of spatial dependency for the household energy mix, especially for traditional heating fuels, and the adoption of modern technologies such as heat pumps, solar collectors and panels. Theoretically, the article expands the use of the energy ladder, and understanding of social practices around energy technology diffusion. The Global and Local Moran I are used to test for the spatial autocorrelation, to identify hot and cold spots of different fuels, and for clustering the municipalities. Spatial (LAG) model is developed to determine the main drivers of the low-quality fuel use. The results indicate that beyond socio-economic indicators, spatial location also has a significant impact on household energy use and households with a similar energy mix are spatially concentrated. Municipalities, just as households, occupy different levels of the energy ladder. These findings confirm the need for spatially concentrated and localized energy policies for the just energy transition.