Community Energy and Sustainable Energy Transitions

This open access book engages with the difficulties of delivering community energy in practice, building on practical experiences in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Mozambique. In these countries, where many people face a substantial gap in access rates to electricity, community energy is an alternative to advance universal energy access. This book argues that, besides providing access, community energy is essential for achieving justice and resilience in the transition to sustainable energy.

Community energy plays a fundamental role in sustainable energy transitions. Community energy combines off-grid infrastructures with innovative forms of governance to incorporate the perspectives of beneficiaries in the generation and distribution of electricity. Community energy systems have multiple benefits for communities, such as facilitating the adoption of renewable technologies, providing energy access where it is lacking, and building resilience. They also offer societal benefits beyond beneficiary communities, such as providing additional capacity to existing grids, delivering off-grid services where the grid is absent, and bridging on-grid and off-grid systems. Despite its promises, however, the adoption of community energy has been slow.

This book presents a feminist-informed perspective on community energy to advance energy justice that puts disadvantaged communities at the centre of the transition. It also explores the room for manoeuvre within existing regulatory systems, supply chains, and delivery systems to facilitate its development. By engaging with existing experiences in community energy, the book demonstrates the potential of communities to gain control over their energy needs and resources and argues for the need to develop a wide range of transdisciplinary skills among policymakers, technicians and communities to deliver a just energy transition.

Vanesa Castán Broto is Professor of Climate Urbanism at the University of Sheffield. She is Principal Investigator of the project  Community Energy And Sustainable Energy Transitions In Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique (CESET), funded by the UK Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF). The project has built a collaborative, multi-institutional partnership bringing together a network of researchers across Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, and the UK to discuss social-oriented alternatives to deliver sustainable energy futures.