Background: Community-owned solar mini-grids (SMGs) are increasingly promoted to provide communities access to reliable electricity, empowering local actors as they become active stakeholders in projects. However, early failures and difficulties in building local capacity have raised questions regarding their long-term sustainability and ability to be replicated to provide socio-economic benefits to the communities. This study assesses the sustainability of 24 community-owned SMGs in India operating over extensive periods of time using a novel scoring framework using mixed methods to derive its conclusions.
The number of models of Decentralized Renewable Energy (DRE) systems, particularly for rural electrification, is growing globally. Most approaches to assess the sustainability of these solutions beyond simple techno-economic considerations are comparative in nature, and only allow us to evaluate performance within a set of other interventions. This leaves a gap in our understanding of the conditions for a specific model to be sustainable and whether its replication is likely to succeed. The approach suggested develops a framework to evaluate the sustainability of specific models for energy access individually and proposes analytical methods to illustrate its use. It combines the multi-dimensional analysis over five sustainability dimensions and the Multi-Tier Framework (MTF) to assess technical sustainability, extending MTF's rigorous scoring methodology to the other dimensions. The scores are based on qualitative and quantitative data collected from key stakeholders, taking into account different perspectives and aims. The framework and analytical methods are exemplified using a subset of data collected in over 40 off-grid DRE systems utilizing a common community ownership and hybrid financial structure. The proposed methodology can be used to understand the sustainability conditions of a given approach to energy access and can therefore be used by practitioners and policy makers to develop strategies and guide policies to roll out effective solutions.Goldemberg et al. [9] define 'sustainable energy services' as those that are "environmentally sound, safe, affordable, convenient, reliable and equitable," thus defining an impactful energy service in terms of technical, socioeconomic, and environmental considerations. Recent developments [10][11][12] also emphasize the need to assess the institutional dimensions, considering the governance of energy infrastructure and participation of beneficiaries, particularly in the case of decentralized solutions. Despite the progress towards a comprehensive approach to assessing sustainability of energy access, technological and economic considerations continue to be prioritized [13,14]. Techno-economic approaches may be effective when testing novel technologies and business models, but they risk overlooking the social and institutional dimensions and could fail to provide an objective and comprehensive analysis [4]. Similarly, when social dimensions are given the priority, considerations around the viability of an intervention from a technical and economic point of view may be overlooked, or a deeper analysis of the local institutional arrangements neglected [7], thus resulting in early failures of interventions [3]. The success of new conceptualizations of energy projects lies between the acceptability, usability, and efficacy of the technology within the particular socioeconomic and cultural context of the project [15,16]. As Miller et al. [17] argue, there is a tendency to "focus almost exclusively on energy supply, leaving aside questions about the design of socio-techni...
Resilience provides a forward-looking framework to understand human–environment relations. Yet, adopted through a system-modelling approach in coupled social-ecological systems, it often reinforces a functionalist vision of the world as an interconnected whole, unable to engage with the multiplicity of people’s practices navigating change. I argue for sustained engagement with resilience and propose a socionatural approach to overcome its system-modelling limitations, thinking through the world’s entities as inherently social and natural. I discuss how socionatural resilience can be pluralized through assemblage ideas and reflect on the implications that an ontological politics of resilience poses for our conceptual framing and methodologies.
This paper is concerned with the impasse climate-informed development practices currently find themselves in. This is represented by the fact that while "solutions" to reduce vulnerabilities and enhance capacities for adaptation and resilience are increasingly adopted around the world, we have enough evidence to suggest that strategies adopted "from above" have been unable to engender transformations towards more just and liveable futures. Situating the paper within recent calls for a "post-adaptation" turn in the field, I propose a generative critique of climate-informed development through the lens of care as a place from where to begin thinking and practicing development differently. The aim of this critique is not to discard or discredit development practices as necessarily tainted or flawed but to make them accountable to a whole set of concerns and cares going into their stories of success or failures. Throughout the paper, I therefore speculatively ask the reader to think though the possibilities that may be opened when we stop treating climate-informed development projects as neutral and undisputable "matters of fact," engaging with them instead as necessary and non-innocent "matters of care." Thinking through a tryptic notion of "matters of care," as at the same time a neglected doing necessary for the sustenance of life, an affective state, and an ethico-politics, I look at examples from semi-arid areas of India to give visibility to those practices, relations, and emotions of care that have been marginalised by mainstream development circles. Through this shift in perception, a deeper understanding of vulnerability as a state of shared fragility emerges, one that grounds an ethico-politics of climate-informed development to concrete circumstances and becomes the foundation upon which more inclusive practices can be built upon. K E Y W O R D S climate change, development, India, matters of care, post-adaptation, vulnerability | INTRODUCTIONA climate-smart world is within reach if we act now, act together, and act differently. (World Bank, 2010, p. 10) Standing, as we are, at this very moment in history, it seems impossible to disagree about the urgency to rethink our development trajectory towards one that is more sustainable and liveable for future generations. Yet, behind such a
Photovoltaic (PV) systems are progressively used for decentralized electricity generation. To obtain the maximum yield from such systems, optimisation of all components is essential. In this contribution, we provide a comprehensive modelling and sizing of PV systems for any location. Three applications are here presented providing real time monitoring of PV potential, accurate prediction of yield taking into account thermodynamic temperature effects, optimization of modules orientation addressing the effects of shading and efficient sizing of inverter for a higher yield output. When combined, these models can accurately predict the real time performance of any PV system.
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