Systems approaches in a just energy transition for equitable access

Locally appropriate solutions and south–south collaboration for just energy transitions

Innovations can drive change, especially in energy systems. However, their efficacy is limited by their suitability in a community. Often, technologies are riddled with inequalities, from their sourcing to their design and implementation. In this session, participants discussed how to better ensure innovations are locally appropriate and foster greater south-south collaboration.

Group activity during the session

We have to change mindsets. We have to cooperate to build on something complex.

Professor Jairo Espinosa

Key takeaways

• Building trust with communities is key to ensuring the long-term uptake of solutions.
• To protect communities from marginalisation and displacement, land rights and governance are needed.
• Technologies must be suited to a community’s capacities and need to be effective. At the same time, community capacities must be developed to ensure project sustainability.
• Complex systems like energy require cross sector collaboration.
• Systems thinking methods like 3D modelling can help innovators – and especially in academia, which can often fall into siloed – better understand the full system – its parts, stakeholders, and enabling environments.

Presentations

Andres Bustamante

Complex cases of energy system implementations in Peru

Andres Bustamante, EcoSwell

To demonstrate the importance of tailoring technological solutions to different communities’ needs, Andres shared his experiences installing a hybrid microgrid energy system in Nazca, Peru. Around 120 people live in Nazca, and prior to the project, they had been without access to energy for the last 80 years. From the onset, the project faced significant challenges. Due to its isolated location, the community could not be connected to existing electric grids. This would require increased investment in infrastructure, but energy companies were also not interested in investing for lack of expected returns. This also deterred potential new residents, impacting the community’s growth and stability.

Employing a systems approach, Andres then identified the stakeholders involved in the project: the community itself, private companies like Enel, Waira Energia, and Marcobre, which viewed the community as invaders due to lack of official land titles, as well as government entities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and civil society. To address these challenges, the project engaged the local population and gained their trust. They consulted community members to define a shared vision, held elections for an electricity committee and built local capacity through workshops. They also outsourced technical aspects of the project to a private company but gave administration and management responsibilities to the community.

Despite difficulties such as low literacy rates and conflicts among community members, the project maintained transparency through community assemblies and regular reviews. The team also undertook extensive capacity building to give community members the skills needed to maintain the project. Since this initial phase of the project, the original funding sources have finished, which has presented challenges in terms of project sustainability and ensuring the community have the tools they need to continue maintaining the energy grid. Ultimately, Andres emphasised the complexity of implementing energy solutions, the importance of stakeholder management, and the need to maintain trust and involvement from the community for a successful and just energy transition.

Professor Jairo Espinosa

Energy transition: an urgent race with many obstacles

Professor Jairo Espinosa, Universidad Nacional de Colombia

Building on the practical aspects of Andres’ presentation, Jairo offered some guiding principles for an inclusive energy transition. To start, he underlined the importance of energy harnessing, which has been essential for the development of civilisation, from nuclear energy to biomass, wind, and hydropower, for example. Though the world still relies on old biomass energy such as coal and oil, it is imperative to find new sustainable sources of energy. To advance the energy transition, cooperation is key, he emphasised, “We have to change mindsets. We have to cooperate to build on something complex.”

Communities are built through cooperation, but to build societies, governance is needed. Governance, in turn, can ensure cooperation towards common goals and manage complex global interactions. In its most effective form, governance can foster cooperation between societies and implement policies for more sustainable futures.

This also feeds into wellbeing and trust, which are greatly influenced by culture and social environment. When they are strong, wellbeing and trust allow effective interactions between individuals, specialisation, confidence in the economy and societal satisfaction. In other words, to foster collaboration and governance, stakeholders must have trust, and to build trust, they must feel their wellbeing is being protected.

These elements can create confidence in a collaboration and encourage more long-term planning – critical for large, complex issues such as climate change.

Addressing these challenges, though, also involves the economy and social instruments. The economy can impact a community’s wellbeing for better or worse, while policy can implement regulation to steer society towards climate-friendly practices, for example. Summarising, Jairo stressed the need to tailor methods such as using technology with these guiding principles to ensure change. Systems cannot be transformed in siloes, and thus efforts must be cross-cutting and inclusive as well.

Hannah Härtwich (L) and Gianne Tillema (R)

3D mapping the energy system

Hannah Härtwich and Gianne Tillema, Systems Innovation Amsterdam Hub

Kicking off an interactive presentation, Hannah and Gianne introduced 3D mapping as a tool to help participants understand how to employ systems thinking in an energy context. This hands on technique creates a model of a system, using different items such as toys to represent specific aspects of it.

To inspire discussions, they offered some examples of the complexity of the energy system. It requires considering how energy is generated, distributed, consumed, and maintained. Models must also account for the stakeholders that interact with the system, including consumers, regulators, energy companies, businesses, technologists, and more. Hannah and Gianne also reminded the group to consider how a 3D model might represent interactions between these different elements and stakeholders. Using models such as these can help uncover problems in a system, people who are excluded but should be included, and where opportunities for improvement lie.

Governance, justice and access

Energy systems are complex and involve a variety of stakeholders with different priorities. Facilitating the just energy transition means navigating this web of interconnected groups. Examining the energy transition from different angles, this session delves into the need for inclusive governance, frameworks for better understanding systems and challenges, as well as ensuring Indigenous rights.

Key takeaways

• Putting a mission at the centre of policy can help increase inclusion and ensure intersectoral collaboration.
• Communities facing poverty must reckon with urgent needs such as access to clean water and healthy food – consider how this may impact their engagement with a project that does not address immediate needs beforehand.
• Governance, stakeholder incentives and power dynamics must be considered when addressing a complex challenge.
• Adopting a systems approach may help address multifaceted challenges to improve community wellbeing overall.
• Critical systems heuristics offers a framework to identify boundaries and limiting mindsets in a project.

Presentations

Stella Leona Deppe

If we really want to reach this huge social and ecological transformation, we need to start within.

Mission-oriented innovation policy as a transformative governance approach for complex systems: hype or hope?

Stella Leona Deppe, Development Cooperation Agency Germany (GIZ)

While many participants and researchers set out to make positive impacts on the world, often these approaches lack a central, focused, and innovative mission. Opening the second session, Stella affirmed: “If we really want to reach this huge social and ecological transformation, we need to start within.”

Driving this forward requires two elements: establishing a ‘moonshot’ mission that addresses inequalities and has directionality, or focused efforts, as well as improved coordination between stakeholders. An approach for ensuring these elements remain central to development and policy decisions is “mission oriented innovation policy”. This features several pillars to guide action:

• it should be innovation-focused
• it requires cross-sectoral collaboration
• state actors must have open dialogue
• there must be a clear goal that is specific and transformative
• the mission must be understandable, measurable, and time-bound.

Governments, for instance, are often siloed in their work, but facilitating an energy transition requires coordination from many different ministries, from energy to environment, economy, and more. Stella referenced frameworks to achieve mission oriented innovation developed by Marianna Mazzucato which call for:

• alignment of missions with development goals
• ensuring the engagement of the private sector; science, technology, and innovation; civil society organisations; and marginalised groups
• strengthening of local innovation ecosystems
• supporting adaptive governance mechanisms.

Closing her presentation, Stella called for participants to consider their own governments and question whether they were driving forward development in a mission-oriented way.

Professor Andrés Felipe Colorado

Renewable energy and Indigenous rights: the Colombian case of balancing sustainability and social justice

Professor Andrés Felipe Colorado, Universidad de Antioquia

To achieve a just transition, innovators must balance sustainability and social justice. Exemplifying the complexity of this task, Andrés detailed his experiences working in La Guajira, a region in Northern Colombia largely populated by Indigenous peoples. On one hand, the region has a high potential for renewable energy as solar radiation levels are 60% higher than the national average and wind speeds are double the global norm. By itself, La Guajira could provide Colombia’s national energy demand multiple times over.

However, the region is also wrought with social issues. It is one of the most impoverished areas, with high rates of malnutrition and drought. In the past, local communities were marginalised, and excluded from the economic benefits of coal plants, for example. Regulations can be a huge help to communities because they give them rights over their lands. This, in turn, protects them from displacement by groups seeking to profit from the region’s resources.

Andrés urged participants to consider the realities of multidimensional poverty when working with communities. Many times, local people face urgent issues such as lack of access to water or nutritious food that they would prioritise over projects like renewable energy. Adopting a systems approach can help address these multifaceted challenges together and ensuring the inclusion of local communities.

Dr Pedro Pablo Cardoso Castro

Exploring the use of critical systems heuristics in community-based projects

Dr Pedro Pablo Cardoso Castro, University of Exeter

To help demonstrate the importance of collaborating with communities, Pedro shared a story. In Bogotá, a group of researchers and development workers discovered a community without toilets in their homes, so they decided to create a project to address this. They organised themselves, found funding, and delivered hundreds of toilets to the community. However, they returned a year later and found the toilets were being used as plant pots. Pedro emphasised that though this story is not unique to Colombia, it shows what happens when an engineered intervention does not consider the needs and resources of communities.

In the example, the community was not considered and therefore the central issue, which was access to clean water, made the toilets unhelpful to them. Critical systems heuristics (CSH) can help avoid scenarios such as these, offering a framework of critical, reflective questions to identify gaps and assumptions in a project. Concluding his presentation, Pedro reiterated, “Systems thinking begins when you start to look at the situation from the eyes of others.”

Circularity and end-of-life technology

With a shift towards renewable energy comes increased resource needs. To ensure that renewable energy systems do not create ulterior sustainability issues, innovators must consider the full lifespan of technologies. In this session, participants learned about circularity, the technological end of life, and systems thinking techniques to support them as they work towards a more sustainable and inclusive energy system.

Key takeaways:

• New technologies should not create more waste but rather can employ circularity and make waste a resource to be used.
• Renewables should not perpetuate wasteful practices of non-renewable systems, for instance by sourcing materials from conflict regions or worsening conditions for local communities.
• New projects must be designed with the future in mind, planning for what happens when a piece of technology comes to its end of life.
• Iceberg models can help foster understanding of the underlying factors driving a challenge, as well as the opportunities for change.
• Systems approaches can help create open channels for communication across collaborators.
• Top-down and bottom-up approaches are needed to drive transformation.

Presentations

Professor Aída Luz Villa Holguín

The circular economy as strategy in the use of critical minerals for clean energy transition

Professor Aída Luz Villa Holguín, Universidad de Antioquia

Aída kicked off the third session by explaining the need for circularity in energy systems. With the increasing adoption of renewable energy sources and batteries to meet climate change goals, the demand for various minerals like aluminium, copper, steel, silver, and silicon is set to rise significantly. For instance, the demand for lithium for batteries is expected to increase 18-fold by 2050. This surge is driven, in part, by the need for batteries in electric vehicles which use minerals like cobalt and high-purity silica for solar panels.

E-waste is also an emerging issue as many technologies combine a variety of materials that cannot be recycled, or which do not have systems in place to reutilise them. The transition away from fossil fuels will require a higher number of mines for these resources. These materials are vital for the energy transition but pose supply risks due to trade policies or limited availability. At the same time, many regions where critical materials are abundant face socio-political challenges, meaning that increased mining can have negative impacts on local communities.

The circular economy offers a solution to these challenges by promoting the reuse of materials and products, extending their lifecycle and improving waste regeneration. This approach transforms the linear path of material use into an interconnected and circular one. However, problems remain, such as the high demand for cobalt from unstable regions and the carbon-intensive process of obtaining graphite. There is also a need for greener processes for extracting minerals.

Alejandra Tabares Pozos

Circularity in renewable energy planning

Alejandra Tabares Pozos, Universidad
de Los Andes

Despite the vast potential of and need for circularity, the world is becoming less circular. In 2021, the global economy was 9% circular, while in 2023, it was only 7.2% circular. Reiterating the urgency of creating more sustainable systems, Alejandra outlined several pressing issues to achieve circularity.

There are several prevailing challenges to achieving circularity. The first is raw material extraction. Many renewable technologies have high material requirements which depletes critical materials and creates a shortage of metals. Another challenge is waste generation as many renewable technologies such as wind turbines are not currently recyclable or do not have the structures in place to reuse or recycle their materials. Though these are sustainable energy sources, they are not designed with circularity in mind.

In addition, eco-design is a challenge as it may be more sustainable in some regards, but it is often not designed for circularity or durability, thus creating more waste. The final challenge Alejandra highlighted was manufacturing and stock management, which creates problems across the installation, maintenance, and logistics of products. Specifically, on this, there is a data gap on usage that could better inform decisions if filled.

However, Alejandra offered several tactics for addressing these issues:

• focus on renewable sources of materials
• stretch the lifetime of technologies
• use waste as a resource
• design with the future in mind
• strengthen and advance knowledge sharing
• adopt new business models.

She also underlined the need for economic and policy frameworks to ensure the success of circular systems. The policy playing field must be levelled to incentivise circular practices over wasteful, extractive ones. Fiscal policy must also reflect the true prices of resources. For example, high environmental costs should be represented in the price of materials. Ultimately, policy must also build circular expertise and skills to ensure long-term success. Closing her presentation, Alejandra underlined the need to integrate circularity into all actions – from individuals to businesses, cities, and countries – and called for more education to build the expertise and skills to make long-lasting change.

Annabel Membrillo

The iceberg tool as a systemic lens to circular challenges

Annabel Membrillo, Universidad del Medio Ambiente

Tying in systems thinking to the discussion around circularity, Annabel explained the iceberg model. On its surface, an iceberg may appear one way, but when diving deeper, it may be completely different. In the model, imagining a challenge as an iceberg allows us to see patterns that may have not been visible without deeper consideration.

Annabel used renewable energy as an example to demonstrate an iceberg model. On the surface level, also known as the event level, she identified what can be immediately seen: there is a shift towards renewables occurring because non-renewable energy produces negative impacts. Looking at the second level down the iceberg, the pattern level, she shared graphs of increasing emissions and use of the components that comprise renewable energy.

The third level examines structure. This level aims to identify what is causing the pattern, usually a structure. In this case, Annabel pointed to the negative impacts of non-renewable energy systems. The final level focuses on mental modelling, which is the beliefs or attitudes that allow a structure to continue. At this level, she emphasised the lack of knowledge about sustainable energy and circular models, and the need to change mindsets.

Keynote Speakers

Professor Alexánder Gómez Mejía

Driving this mission means going through the levels of technical readiness, but the final level of research is living labs – working directly with communities and learning about real environments even if it is challenging.

Professor Alexánder Gómez Mejía, Universidad Nacional de Colombia

Contextualising the symposium’s discussions, Professor Alexánder Gómez Mejía delved into the challenges and current developments in the just energy transition in Colombia. Currently, 23% of the country’s energy comes from renewables, higher than the 14% global average. There is also high political will to mitigate climate change, though the main focus of emissions mitigation in Colombia is agriculture, forestry, and land use. At the same time, energy access in the country is divided: around 97% of the population can access energy through the national grid, but almost 20% are also energy-poor. This leaves around 800,000 people without access to energy.

Colombia’s energy comes from a mix of fossil and renewable sources. However, the transition to more renewable energy results in several challenges. Several regions, for instance, are rich in hydropower resources, but transporting this energy to other areas requires further infrastructural development. Additionally, the reliance of renewables on the weather means they are highly variable. To drive the just transition forward, Alexánder called for several key actions:

• Coordination between regions of the country
• Education of communities on energy usage
• Involvement of local and Indigenous communities
• Creation of new energy storage tools
• Shifting to smaller, decentralised energy
• Plants to serve community needs
• Digitisation to coordinate between the many different energy system actors
• Improved regulation.

Closing his keynote, Alexánder underlined: “Driving this mission means going through the levels of technical readiness, but the final level of research is living labs – working directly with communities and learning about real environments even if it is challenging."

Carlos Enrique Vélez Restrepo

Carlos Enrique Vélez Restrepo, Empresas Públicas de Medellín EPM

Carlos Enrique Vélez Restrepo has worked to deliver energy access to people across Colombia, collaborating with both the public and private sectors to create energy communities. These are groups of citizens that cooperate around energy for their community. The development of these groups relies on three pillars:

• Environmental – reducing energy consumption and increasing the use of renewables.
• Economic – creating savings for the user and investment opportunities for the community.
• Social – providing local employment and giving the community ownership over the system and its maintenance.

In Medellín specifically, he helped to develop an energy community for Comuna El Salvador. The project connected 24 households to energy through solar panels on their rooftops and an existing grid to distribute the energy. The energy produced would then be logged in a digital platform and provide tokens to each family for the amount of energy produced. Then, they could use the tokens to pay their bills.

The digital platform also allowed community members to better understand their own energy usage, providing notifications when more energy was being used than the average. As a result, people were more informed on sustainable energy consumption, saving on average 37% on their bills. To ensure its success, the programme also facilitated workshops to inform the community on how to use the digital platform and apply the learnings.

However, the project was not without challenges, which provided learnings for the future. Building trust with communities is critical – they must be transparently informed on not only the project but its impacts and benefits. Local energy structures were also difficult to manage, as people were required to pay ‘reactive’ energy costs or estimated usage in advance. Communities must also be supported to keep the system running. This means ensuring the project is economically feasible and is not reliant on high-priced, inaccessible tools and equipment, while also ensuring they have the training necessary.