Is small beautiful? A multicriteria assessment of small-scale energy technology applications in local governments

Burton, Jonathan; Hubacek, Klaus

doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2007.08.002

Cited by 112 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…For an energy system to be sustainable, it needs to be socially accepted, which implies the active participation and engagement of the community aimed at enhancing the accountability of the project [40,47,50,56,60,189,190]. Off-grid PV systems can be a great opportunity to assure social acceptance; Burton and Hubacek [191] found that, compared to large-scale solutions, small-scale energy approaches may have a higher social acceptance.…”

Section: Social Acceptancementioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability of Off-Grid Photovoltaic Systems for Rural Electrification in Developing Countries: A Review

Féron

2016

Sustainability

110

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Abstract:A review on rural electrification programs and projects based on off-grid Photovoltaic (PV) systems, including Solar Pico Systems (SPS) and Solar Home Systems (SHS) in Developing Countries (DCs) was conducted. The goal was to highlight the main multidimensional drawbacks that may constrain the sustainability of these systems. Four dimensions of sustainability (institutional, economic, environmental and socio-cultural) were considered in this review. It was found that institutional flaws (such as the scarcity of durability/stability and enforcement of formal institutions, weak regulations or standards, incomplete decentralization/participation and the lack of institutional adaptability) seriously compromise the sustainability of rural electrification efforts in DCs. While the lack of an effective focalized subsidy scheme (e.g., cross-tariff scheme) for the electricity tariffs of the poor population often made projects economically unsustainable, the scarcity of environmental awareness, regulations or incentives has often turned presumably clean energy technologies into environmentally unsustainable projects. Progress regarding social acceptance, accuracy and cultural justice is urgently needed for ensuring the socio-cultural sustainability of rural electrification efforts in DCs. This review may help stakeholders to identify and (based on prior experiences) address the most severe drawbacks affecting the sustainability of rural electrification efforts in DCs.

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Section: Social Acceptancementioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability of Off-Grid Photovoltaic Systems for Rural Electrification in Developing Countries: A Review

Féron

2016

Sustainability

110

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“…Thus, to assess the sustainability of future energy systems, multi-criteria decision methods are used. These provide more reliable results but are more complex [30,31]. Existing sustainability indexes and metrics vary a lot in size of target region and the evaluation criteria considered, but all include economic, social and environmental aspects.…”

Section: Sustainability Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience Thinking as an Interdisciplinary Guiding Principle for Energy System Transitions

Wiese¹

2016

Resources

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Abstract:Resource usage and environmental consequences of most current energy systems exceed planetary boundaries. The transition to sustainable energy systems is accompanied by a multitude of research methods, as energy systems are complex structures of technical, economical, social and ecological interactions. The description of different discipline's perspectives in this paper show that a more mutual understanding between disciplines of their respective focus is necessary as they partly create internally competitive views arising from differing emphasis of connected matters. The purpose of this paper is to present a framework for interdisciplinary proceeding in a complex energy system transition process. Resilience thinking is chosen as a core concept for a more holistic view on sustainable energy system development. It is shown that it is already widely used in different disciplines connected to energy system research and is especially suitable due to its wide application across disciplines. The seven principles of resilience thinking (maintain redundancy and diversity, manage connectivity, manage slow variables and feedback, foster complex adaptive systems thinking, encourage learning, broaden participation, and promote polycentric governance systems) are chosen as the basis for a procedure that can be utilized to increase the interdisciplinary perspectives of energy system transitions. For energy transition processes based on scenario development, backcasting and pathway definition, resilience thinking principles are used to assess the resilience of the target energy system, the pathway resilience and the design of the scenario process with respect to the probability of a resilient outcome. The described procedure consisting of questions and parameters can be applied as a first attempt for a resilience assessment of energy transition processes. The perspective of resilience in sustainable energy systems strengthens the importance of diversity, redundancy and flexibility, which reduces the current dominant focus on efficiency of the overall system.

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“…However, in the emerging field of energy planning, very few examples of application are available in literature. An interesting application is provided by Burton and Hubaceck [31]. The two authors used the MACBETH approach for assessing and comparing eight renewable energy technologies at differing scales, using an official definition of renewable energy provided by the UK government.…”

Section: Extremelymentioning

confidence: 99%

Multicriteria Spatial Decision Support Systems for Future Urban Energy Retrofitting Scenarios

et al. 2017

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Nowadays, there is an increasing concern about sustainable urban energy development taking into account national priorities of each city. Many cities have started to define future strategies and plans to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Urban energy scenarios involve the consideration of a wide range of conflicting criteria, both socio-economic and environmental ones. Moreover, decision-makers (DMs) require proper tools that can support their choices in a context of multiple stakeholders and a long-term perspective. In this context, Multicriteria Spatial Decision Support Systems (MC-SDSS) are often used in order to define and analyze urban scenarios since they support the comparison of different solutions, based on a combination of multiple factors. The main problem, in relation to urban energy retrofitting scenarios, is the lack of appropriate knowledge and evaluation criteria. The latter are crucial for delivering and assessing urban energy scenarios through a MC-SDSS tool. The main goal of this paper is to analyze and test two different methods for the definition and ranking of the evaluation criteria. More specifically, the paper presents an on-going research study related to the development of a MC-SDSS tool able to identify and evaluate alternative energy urban scenarios in a long-term period perspective. This study refers to two Smart City and Communities research projects, namely: DIMMER (District Information Modeling and Management for Energy Reduction) and EEB (Zero Energy Buildings in Smart Urban Districts).

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Is small beautiful? A multicriteria assessment of small-scale energy technology applications in local governments

Cited by 112 publications

References 34 publications

Sustainability of Off-Grid Photovoltaic Systems for Rural Electrification in Developing Countries: A Review

Sustainability of Off-Grid Photovoltaic Systems for Rural Electrification in Developing Countries: A Review

Resilience Thinking as an Interdisciplinary Guiding Principle for Energy System Transitions

Multicriteria Spatial Decision Support Systems for Future Urban Energy Retrofitting Scenarios

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