Dissertations / Theses: 'Community renewable energy groups'

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van, Veelen Bregje. "Devolution, democracy, and the challenge of diversity : community energy governance in Scotland." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/28919.

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This research investigates the emergence of new participatory spaces in the transition towards a low-carbon society. Specifically, it focuses on the emerging spaces and roles for community groups in renewable energy governance. The role of community groups in facilitating a low-carbon transition has received much attention in recent years, but has been insufficiently studied within the wider context of evolving state-civil society relations. This research puts forward an understanding of community energy initiatives that is neither inherently celebratory nor dismissive of community action, but argues that such initiatives should be understood based on the interactions – between practices, organisations and relations – within and external to these communities. In doing so, this research adopts an interdisciplinary approach, building on insights from both geography and political science to understand how opportunities for community participation are articulated in particular geographical and political contexts. Grounding this research in Scotland shows the unique ways in which devolution – from the UK Government to the Scottish Government, but primarily through the emerging powers for community groups in Scotland – has created a set of spatially and temporally-specific spaces and practices of intervention. The devolution of energy governance, and the diversity of practices emerging through this process, also raises questions, however, about the democratic qualities of these new spaces and practices. This research specifically explores this issue through building on the emerging concept of energy democracy. ‘Energy democracy’ is a concept that has been adopted by a growing number of international civil society actors who regard the transition to law-carbon energy sources as an opportunity not only for technological innovation but also for wider socio-economic transformation. Invoking an image of associative democracy, those advocating for greater energy democracy consider self-governing community groups as best placed to ensure that the transition towards a low-carbon society is one that is more inclusive, democratic and just. While energy democracy, like related concepts of energy citizenship and energy justice, aims to combine technological and social transformation, its activist roots also means it is noticeably different. This is evident in two ways. First, the current body of literature is largely uncritical and rather vague in nature. The second consequence of the activist roots of energy democracy is that it is diverse in its framing of the issue and its formulation of desired transition pathways. As its main contribution to existing academic debate, my thesis explores and expands the conceptual foundations of ‘energy democracy’ by evaluating its connections to different political theories, and the consequences of different interpretations for energy democracy research and practice. Secondly, I seek to develop the empirical evidence base for energy democracy. The current, primarily activist, literature on energy democracy often assumes rather than demonstrates that the forms of governance it promotes are more democratic than the status quo. This PhD therefore sets out to analyse the complex and varied ways in which local communities practice energy governance in Scotland. First, I introduce a quantitatively-developed typology of community energy projects in Scotland to highlight the diverse nature of the sector. Subsequently I demonstrate through qualitative interviews with community groups how the diversity of the sector (both within and between groups) both contributes to, and challenges, the democratic claims made for and by community energy. In the final part I show that the hybridity of spaces created by, and for, community energy intermediaries reflect the interactions between policy and community-action. Through a focus on the interaction between actors at different governance levels, my research helps to improve an understanding of the creation and contestation of new spaces of intervention in the Scottish energy transition as a process that not only reflects a broader (re)structuring of state-civil society relations, but also provides an early and somewhat experimental expression of such restructuring.

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Friend, Sara. "Realities of an 'Orkney way' : communicating perceptions of renewable energy in Orkney, Scotland." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/10471.

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Orkney is currently home to over 400 wind turbines and a growing marine energy industry, developing cutting edge technology for what could be called a global energy transition. Situated off the north tip of the Scottish mainland, the archipelago is also home to a long-standing local population of just over 21,000 inhabitants. In fact, habitation in these islands stretches back over 5,000 years, a connection expressed by the local population. This thesis rests at the intersection of these two points of interest: energy and locality. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork conducted between October 2013 and October 2014, this thesis analyses the communication of perceptions of renewable energy in the archipelago. It takes into consideration the specificity of one particular network of relations: the individuals employed or otherwise involved in the development and production of this energy while situating the specificity of these perceptions within the larger body of residents. Here, collective history, the importance of place, and maintenance of identity are intimately tied up in the range of perspectives present, as well as within the very promotion of the industry. The relationship between individual perception and collective affirmation, the existence of multiple spheres of realities, the simplification of realities in the communication meaning, and the relationship between nodes of interaction are all analysed. While far from a constantly discussed occurrence, the presence of renewable energy in Orkney has provided residents with a mobilising force, an impetus for discussions of the self, of identity and belonging, of the importance of place, and of the relationship between the past, present and future.

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Schuette, Krystal M. "Endependence: renewable energy in a rural community." Thesis, Kansas State University, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2097/8780.

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Master of Landscape Architecture
Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning
Mary C. Kingery-Page
Rural Kansas communities are almost entirely dependent on large energy corporations. These corporations, in turn, are almost completely dependent on fossil fuels for energy production. Three major implications exist within these dependencies: 1) the dependence of rural communities on large corporations reduces the potential of a local economy to support itself; 2) the dependence on fossil fuels has severe environmental impacts; and 3) fossil fuels are non-renewable resources and will inevitably be exhausted. A rural Kansas community has resources necessary to achieve and maintain energy independence in a renewable manner. The design of these systems in regard to economy, society, aesthetics, technology, and ecology will play a key role in sustaining these resources into the future. The intent of the project is to create a tool for rural communities to evaluate localized renewable energy potential using Washington, Kansas as an example. Several questions were addressed to determine the capacity and feasibility of each local energy resource: What renewable energy resources are available to a rural Kansas community and are they sufficient for the community to achieve energy independence? How can the resource or its production be designed and maintained in regard to its environmental impact and long-term viability? What are the implications of energy independence for the community’s identity? Because each question is dependent upon the answer to a previous question, a decision tree was the most viable method for the project’s analysis and development. Research into the technology and science associated with each resource provided a general knowledge of the definitions associated with and processes necessary to determine the feasibility of the resource. For resources receiving a positive feasibility rating, analysis continued with a basic cost/benefit analysis that compares potential costs involving implementation and maintenance with the payback, offsets, and incentives involved in utilizing each resource. Analysis of each feasible resource continued with site suitability analysis. The analysis of each resource resulted in resource maps showing potential implementation locations for three renewable resources studied: hydro, wind, and solar. The maps and accompanying graphics communicate the integration of renewable energy technologies into the existing community’s identity.

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Behrendt, Thomas. "Community renewable energy projects - The role of small scale projects for energy transition." Thesis, Behrendt, Thomas (2014) Community renewable energy projects - The role of small scale projects for energy transition. Masters by Coursework thesis, Murdoch University, 2014. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/24573/.

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This research focuses on the evaluation of Community Renewable Energy Projects in the aspect of its role for energy transition. There are many reasons to believe, that the current energy system needs to be changed. So far our energy consumption was based on fossil fuels, with a number of adverse consequences. Therefore it is expected that a new energy system will replace the traditional one. The process of development from the old towards the new system is so called the energy transition. To achieve a successful development renewable energy based system, alternatives need to be found. One idea is to support Community Renewable Energy Projects (CREP). These are projects initiated by a local community, with the aim of independently making use of renewable energy. To gain knowledge on the characteristics of such projects, a case study was initiated, which was assessing the implementation process, the characteristics and the way of operation on the basis of four successfully completed examples. For the evaluation of the case studies an AMSWOT- analysis was applied. The outcomes of this research show the complexity of such projects. Due to the large number of participants in those projects, these are difficult to implement. But the assessed projects show that it is possible to use the diversity of involved people as a strength. Many successful projects have been implemented to date with a very positive outcome. In some countries those initiatives occupy a significant share of the renewable energy market. Many very small projects are forming a movement that can have significant influence on the energy system. But in other countries a contrasting development was found. CREP are not developed in those places. This shows the dependency of this kind of solution for energy transition on the existence of the right circumstances.

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Zahnd, Alexander. "The role of renewable energy technology in holistic community development." Thesis, Zahnd, Alexander (2012) The role of renewable energy technology in holistic community development. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2012. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/21881/.

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Nepal is a unique country, in regard to its culture, people, geography, ecosystems and climate. It is situated in the lap of the Himalayas, landlocked between China to the north and India to the south, east and west. It was previously cut-off by thick forests and jungles infested with malaria and dangerous animals, and its culture developed in isolation from any foreign influence. The rich resources of Nepal, in particular the abundant water flowing from the Himalayas down to the Indian sub-continent, and its abundant solar energy, are heavily underutilised. Thus, ~75% of Nepal’s rural people are deprived of even the most basic energy services. They rely on traditional biomass such as firewood, agricultural residues and dung, for their daily cooking, heating and lighting purposes. With a human development index (HDI) of 0.458, Nepal ranks among the poorest developing countries. Theory and practice reveal that in recent decades, community development addressed mostly the individual needs of projects’ end-users, with often minimal interaction and participation of the receiver. This resulted in minimal long-term impact and/or new opportunities for the beneficiaries. The thesis aims to make a contribution to an improved approach to the community development of Nepal’s people within their context and identified needs. It argues that appropriate and sustainable solutions for long-term development of local communities demand that people’s self identified needs are recognised and addressed in holistic ways. This is because communities have multi-faceted needs, which are all dependent on, and interlinked with, each other, and thus can’t be addressed through single-strand projects. Further, utilising the communities’ locally available resources is crucial for long-term sustainable development. Accordingly, the thesis’ main research questions are: • What is the appropriate role of renewable energy technology in holistic community development? and • Does the newly developed holistic community development concept of the “Family of 4” and the “Family of 4 PLUS” provide a sustainable way of improving the quality of life for remote and impoverished mountain communities in Nepal? The research shows that tapping into the locally available renewable energy resources, and converting them through contextualised renewable energy technologies, has to be a central part of community development. This is done, through the study of practical examples of appropriate technologies for some of Nepal’s remotest, high-altitude village communities, who live under the harshest imaginable conditions. The research shows that the most commonly expressed needs of the communities are for improved and easier access to basic energy services, and better hygiene and health conditions. Therefore the author developed the new Holistic Community Development (HCD) concept of the “Family of 4” (a Pit Latrine, a Stove, Basic Indoor Lighting and Clean Drinking Water). Once the “Family of 4” HCD is effectively implemented, the “Family of 4 PLUS”, with various additional measures (such as greenhouse, solar drier, solar water heater, slow sand water filter) is introduced. This thesis looks at the role of renewable energy technologies (RETs), designed for a specific context, to meet identified community needs embedded in the new HCD concepts. RETs such as solar PV, solar thermal (water heating, food cooking and drying), pico-hydro power, small wind turbines and biomass (firewood) cooking and heating stoves, are discussed within the context of implemented, village based, HCD projects. Impact data presented show encouraging results, and thus it can be claimed that the main research questions can be positively affirmed. The HCD approach produces synergies between the various components which provide additional benefits to the recipients at no extra cost. The newly developed RETs and HCD concepts include various new locally manufactured technologies, providing a contribution to the steady growth of the local economy. Numerous suggestions and recommendations for further R&D are presented.

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Pathak, Ruchie. "Sharing the Sun: Community Solar in Ohio." The Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1587682849293268.

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Greenius, Leigh, Elsa Jagniecki, and Kati Thompson. "Moving Towards Sustainable Community Renewable Energy : A Strategic Approach for Communities." Thesis, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, Sektionen för ingenjörsvetenskap, 2010. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:bth-2609.

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The developed world relies on an enormous supply of electricity and heat energy to power countless daily activities, predominantly using non-renewable fossil fuels. Although this energy assists people in meeting their basic human needs, the way in which it is produced is at odds with the ability of people to continue to meet their needs in the future. The current trend towards renewable energy generation in the developed world that involves community members is a positive step away from current unsustainable energy practices. A Strategic Sustainable Development (SSD) approach helps to guide planning and decision making by using a vision of a sustainable energy future to assist in undertaking strategic actions. To offer practical support to communities wanting to work towards sustainable energy generation, this research combines the experience of communities undertaking Community Renewable Energy projects with an SSD approach, producing a Sustainable Community Renewable Energy Tool.

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Stow, Maddy. "The carbon saving potential of community renewable energy in the UK." Thesis, University of Bath, 2015. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.669033.

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This research answers the question: what is the potential of community renewable energy projects to reduce carbon emissions in the United Kingdom (UK)? This research provides evidence of the benefits of community energy projects in the UK that have been identified as lacking in a recent report produced for the Department of Energy and Climate Change. The work is based on analysis of primary data collected from 13 community energy projects that were active in 2011 in England and Wales. The 13 projects were based around energy generation and cover three types of technology: photovoltaic (PV), wind turbine and hydro power. A qualitative assessment is carried out of interviews conducted with representatives of the community energy projects to examine why certain actions are taken during the development and delivery of the projects. Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology is applied to these case studies to calculate their carbon impact in three areas: directly through installation of the project; indirectly through use of the income stream created by the project; and indirectly due to behaviour change in the community caused by increased knowledge and/or acceptance of energy generation and climate change issues. The LCA results are then used to model the potential impact of the community energy projects that have already been installed in the UK. The results of the work suggest that community energy projects do generally reduce carbon emissions in the UK. However use of the income stream typically reduces the potential for the community energy project to reduce carbon emissions. Behaviour change in households to install additional energy generation can increase the potential for the community energy project to reduce carbon emissions. The impact, both positive and negative that government policy has had on the sector is significant despite the perceived independent nature of the sector.

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Prevedi, Andrea. "Energy Communities in Italy." Master's thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2020. http://amslaurea.unibo.it/21973/.

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Citizens are expected to have a great role in the future global energy transition toward a low-carbon economy and climate neutrality. The creation of energy communities can empower citizens, who become prosumers, providing flexibility and ancillary services, reducing losses and grid investment deferral. It also brings environmental and social benefits, activating virtuous circles in the local economy. The purpose of this work is to analyze the current regulatory framework energy community; a deeper analysis is performed on renewable energy community whose regulation has been already transposed in the Italian regulation. Moreover, a realistic business-case is presented in order to verify the feasibility of a renewable energy community and a collective self-consumption schemes in the CAAB-FICO area. The final part of the work seeks to present an overview of the possible future perspectives regarding energy community and their possible contribution to smart-cities development. Particular attention has been given to the role of the energy management system in an energy community and a how it can be designed to improve the community’s energy efficiency through the implementation of production and load forecasts.

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Wlokas, Holle Linnea. "Implementing community renewables: institutional work in South Africa's renewable energy procurement programme." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/26889.

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In 2014, for the first time in its history, South Africa fed the national electricity grid with electricity generated through utility-scale renewable energy projects. The Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) is the policy instrument driving this change. The process requires bidding private energy companies to commit resources in alleviation of local socio-economic needs. This thesis analyses the question how the institutions evolve in the implementation of community benefit requirements. The theoretical frameworks of institutional work and logics helps to analyse this new organizational field and interaction of various actors in government, industries and communities. An action research approach grounds this research empirically and aims to create the opportunity for actors to reflect on their actions and engagement in the community benefit implementation process. The research asks how are government, companies and communities shape institutions in the implementation of the community benefit requirements in South Africa's REIPPPP? The study first analyses the procurement requirements for community benefit and ownership, then, secondly, reviews the first 64 approved project bids for suggestions made in response to these requirements. A third research step involves fieldwork in 13 wind and solar projects across the country, the fieldwork consisting of interviews with project stakeholders about their experiences. The research negotiates access to an emerging and competitive, but also enquiring industry, one that has shared with the researcher important insights into its evolving community engagement and its development practices and considerations. The findings reveal that, in the implementation of South Africa's community renewables, government and companies dominate institutional work efforts in the stages of policy formulation and project development. But communities, the least informed and capacitated actor among the three, face the results and they have particular ways of responding, including corrective and disruptive ways. Reflective spaces are dominated by industry and strategically exclude communities from both asserting their experiences as well as from the opportunity to participate in creating collective understanding and agreeable processes that would foster the long-term relationship between company and community. This is a shortcoming that requires urgent attention to ensure positive institutional work and developmental impact.

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Karumba, Mary Muthoni. "Socio-economic analysis of community-based micro hydro electricity schemes in Kenya." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/27067.

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This thesis addresses three economic and social impediments to the successful deployment of community-based micro hydro grids using a case study from the Republic of Kenya. Kenya is one of the countries in Sub-Sahara Africa currently faced with low rural electricity access rates, but with abundant micro hydro resources spread across vast rural locations. Although majority of financial resources are channeled to grid extension in developing countries like Kenya, many rural households still live 'under the grid' because they cannot afford connection fees and/or cost of grid electricity. Such phenomenon has led to innovative solutions such as the concept of Community-Based Renewable Energy Schemes (CRES), facilitating joint exploitation of a local renewable energy (RE) resources. The government of Kenya in partnership with non-state actors set up demonstration points for Community-Based Micro Hydro Schemes (CBMHS) in two locations, and other communities have adopted this model by setting up their own electrification schemes in Kenya. However, the success of such schemes continues to be very limited in Kenya and other developing countries with majority of them disintegrating after few years of operation. This phenomenon is widely documented in literature, and a variety of barriers to success of such schemes continue to be interrogated in both published and unpublished academic literature. There are issues relevant to both establishment and continued operation of such electrification that have not received much scholarly research, but continue to largely limit delivery of sustainable and quality service, as well as hindering scaling up of these potentially useful rural electrification alternatives. These include: a) mismatch between the provided services by such group electrification schemes and the expectations of their consumers b) lack of supportive capacity for joint effort mobilization and capacity for self-governance within such schemes c) unsubstantiated claims of the capability of small scale renewable energy electrification impact on households that make them not to be considered as equally important energy solutions. This thesis makes a threefold contribution to the literature of rural electrification by firstly analyzing preference for properties of decentralized electricity delivery service in a field dominated by utility provided grid solutions. Secondly, the literature on governance of man-made common pool resources (CPR) is extended by providing evidence for the requirements for successful management of a small-scale electricity commons line a CBMHS. Lastly, the study produces reliable evidence regarding immediate or short-term changes to households anticipated from small scale electrification projects. Overall, the study presents lessons on implementing and sustaining rural communities' investments in decentralized RE electrification while demonstrating why such schemes should now form essential part of rural electrification delivery models. The three research issues are addressed independently in three chapters that follow the introductory chapter of this thesis.

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Rogers, Jennifer Claire. "The development and impacts of community renewable energy projects in rural Cumbria, UK." Thesis, Lancaster University, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.551643.

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In the UK a consensus has emerged that renewable energy generation should be increased. Following public opposition to large-scale installations, interest has grown in the potential for community-based renewable energy developments, with high levels of local participation. Bottom up development processes are expected to deliver locally appropriate projects more likely to win public support, bring socio-economic and environmental benefits to rural areas and increase public engagement with sustainable energy issues. This thesis investigates the development and impacts of community renewable energy projects in rural Cumbria to assess the validity of these expectations. A series of in-depth case studies was undertaken to compare development of projects at different stages, with a focus on woodfuel heating. The research used an action research approach and grounded theory methodology for data analysis, as these techniques are appropriate for the study of complex, real-world problems. Abstract Title: Author: Submitted: The development and impacts of community renewable energy projects in rural Cumbria, UK Jennifer Claire Rogers, BSc October 2010 Considerable support for the concept of community-based renewable energy generation was found, alongside widespread enthusiasm for low-level participation in project development. Community-led project development was less attractive but can be successful in well-defined socially-cohesive communities where individuals have the skills, motivation and support to drive a bottom-up development process. Processes of project development as well as project outcomes were found to have positive impacts, although increased engagement with sustainable energy issues through community renewables did not necessarily lead to energy behaviour change. Overall the research indicated there is potential for community renewables which has by no means been realised yet, but that greater institutional support will be required for successful conversion of local ideas and enthusiasm into practical projects. Given that opportunities for community renewables are highly context-dependent the most effective support structures are likely to be locally-specific and responsive, and include more proactive approaches to identify and exploit opportunities with communities where independent local leadership does not emerge.

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Sawyer, Charles. "Meeting Future Electricity Needs in the East African Community : Mapping Renewable Energy Potential." Thesis, KTH, Hållbar utveckling, miljövetenskap och teknik, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-284462.

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The East African Community (EAC) is an intergovernmental organisation comprised of six countries, five of which are classed as having a low development level and one of which is classed as medium. The region has low rates of human development and electrical connectivity but is committed to meeting the universal access and clean energy goals of Sustainable Development Goal 7. This thesis seeks to explore the renewable energy potential of the EAC at a regional level. There is little study of the energy situation of the EAC as a specific region, contrasting this work to the majority of similar analyses that focus on the national or sub-Saharan level. The potential for solar PV and wind power in the EAC was examined through an analysis of existing energy systems, a simplified multi-criteria analysis through geographical information systems, and a comparison with similar work by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). The region was shown to have a small but growing electricity sector and a primary energy system dominated by traditional biomass. The mapping analysis identified large areas across all studied countries as potentially suitable for on- or off-grid renewable energy. It also highlighted issues with the results of IRENA’s work in its current form. Solar PV and wind energy potential across the EAC is shown to be high, with a low carbon electricity sector consequently a possibility for the region in the future.
Den Östafrikanska Gemenskapen (EAC) är en mellanstatlig organisation av sex länder. Fem av de länderna har en låg utvecklingsnivå och en är klassificerad som medelnivå. Regionen har låg mänsklig utveckling och tillgång till elkraft men har bestämt att uppfylla globala målen 7: säkerställa tillgång till ekonomiskt överkomlig, tillförlitlig, hållbar och modern energi för alla. Denna uppsats utforskade potentialen för förnybar energi i den EAC på en regional nivå. Potentialen för solenergi och vindkraft i EAC undersöktes genom en analys av befintliga energisystem, en förenklad multikriterianalys genom geografiska informationssystem (GIS) och en jämförelse med liknande arbete från den International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). En liten men växande elsektor och ett primärt energisystem dominerat av traditionell biomassa identifierades i regionen. Kartläggningsanalysen identifierade stora områden i alla studerade länder som lämpliga för förnybar energi på, eller utanför, elnätet. Analysen fann också problem med resultaten från IRENAs arbete med Global Atlas of Renewable Energy projektet. Det finns god potential för sol- och vindkraft i EAC och möjligheten av ett lågkoldioxidenergisystem är diskuterade som en potential framtid för regionen.

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Conedera, Katelynn Maria. "Consumer Support For Renewable Energy Systems: A Case Study Of Community Biodigesters In Vermont." ScholarWorks @ UVM, 2019. https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis/1054.

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From the steady rise in dairy farm closures to concerns over algae blooms in Lake Champlain, Vermont’s dairy industry is facing a multitude of challenges. While many potential solutions have been proposed, this study focuses specifically on community anaerobic digester systems (CADS) to aid in manure management, help to mitigate runoff, produce renew energy, and even provide an alternative revenue source to participating farms. CADS technology converts the gas emissions from manure and other organic substances into biogas through a process called anaerobic digestion. Unlike traditional on-farm biodigesters, which are often only financially viable for the largest dairy farms, CADS are able to accept both manure from multiple dairy farms and food waste from the surrounding community. In Vermont, consumers can purchase biogas-produced electricity from biodigesters in the state for an additional cost through Green Mountain Power’s Cow Power program. However, little research has been conducted regarding the success of CADS-produced electricity on the consumer market. This thesis focuses on two surveys conducted in Randolph, Vermont and Addison County exploring attitudes of local biodigesters in relation to other renewable energy sources available to consumers, as well as issues related to composting and recycling. The objective of this study is to provide policy makers and biodigester operators a better understanding of community attitudes of biodigesters compared to other renewable energy systems, as well as willingness to participate in paid services that could support the operation of the biodigesters. In 2017, a survey was distributed to households in Randolph, the location of the Vermont Technical College CADS, through the local newspaper. A second survey was also conducted in 2019, distributed via newspaper to residents in Addison County, a dairy county home to four operational biodigesters. Results from the 2017 survey suggest that there is generally a low willingness to pay for the Cow Power program and food waste removal services that support biodigesters, although targeted educational approaches focusing on how CADS benefit the community may improve attitudes towards them. The 2019 survey shows similar levels of willingness to participate and pay, although attitudes of biodigesters and public support for anaerobic digester technology were considerably higher. Through educational outreach efforts, community acceptance of biodigesters can be improved to avoid cancellation of projects due to lack of community support.

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Martiskainen, Mari. "Developing community energy projects : experiences from Finland and the UK." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2014. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/51506/.

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Community energy has drawn interest from the general public, policy makers and researchers in the UK over the last few years. Community energy projects, such as energy saving measures and renewable energy projects, are usually organised by civil society groups rather than commercial businesses. This DPhil research approaches community energy as local grassroots innovation and compares its development in two different countries, Finland and the UK. Key research question is: Why and how do community energy projects develop and how do they contribute to niche development? The thesis uses Sustainability Transitions studies literature, especially literature on Strategic Niche Management (SNM), as a theoretical framing, and empirical in-depth analysis of four community energy projects, two in the UK and two in Finland. The research examines how community energy projects develop in ‘niches'. Research findings highlight that motivations for projects include monetary savings, energy savings and climate change. Projects are developed by pre-existing community groups or groups that have come together to develop an energy project. Local embedding of community energy projects to each project's individual circumstances helps successful project delivery. Pre-existing skills and tacit knowledge such as the ability to seek information and fill in funding applications can aid success. Engagement with key stakeholders further shapes projects' aims and objectives. Community energy projects benefit from a clear leader who works with a supportive team. There is evidence of projects networking at the local and national level in the UK, while in Finland networking remains limited to the local area and projects often develop in isolation. Furthermore, there is a clear lack of active intermediary organisations in the Finnish context. Policy discourse at the government level can aid the attractiveness of community energy, while continued funding support encourages more people to get involved in projects in their local areas.

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Butu, Ahmed Ibrahim. "Energy and sustainability transitions : the case of community renewables for off-grid rural electrification in Nigeria with emphasis on Shape community project." Thesis, Robert Gordon University, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10059/2438.

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The transition from one energy system to another has been analysed by many researchers especially in the context of developed countries. Community renewable energy transition in rural areas is largely under-researched, particularly in developing countries. This study developed a model based on indicators from transition theory and concepts to assess the transformative potential of the processes and governance approaches to community renewable energy in accelerating energy and sustainability transition in off-grid communities in Nigeria. The exploratory research adopted a case study approach and analysed renewable energy planning and decision-making processes as well as evaluated the development of a pilot community renewable energy project in Shape rural community in Nigeria. In addition to documentary evidence, the study gathered data primarily by interviewing 24 relevant actors in the Nigerian electricity industry as well as actors involved in the pilot community renewable energy project. The study reveals that the processes and governance approaches adopted are in line with transition theory and have the potential of contributing to the transformation of the rural electricity provision in Nigeria. However, there is still a long way to go for Nigeria to effectively implement an integrated governance approach capable of accelerating the transition processes. The study found that community renewable energy is motivated by several determinants including: the lack of energy accessibility; removing carbon emissions; meeting environmental obligations; achieving energy security; and, addressing cracks in the current system of rural electrification. The study further found a lack of local initiatives at the grassroots level that can add pressure to make the transition happen. The study found the establishment of an arena for the identification of the challenges facing rural communities and development of strategies. However, some prominent actors are not involved in both strategic decision-making and the implementation process. Of concern, the study revealed a lack of clearly defined responsibilities with most of the government agencies carrying out renewable energy activities independently. Similarly, the study found several barriers which are classified as: actor; interaction; institutional; infrastructural; and, socio-political that are challenging the successful transition to community renewable energy. This work contributes to current attempts to operationalise transition theory and concepts to assess on-going transition processes and governance. This is a significant contribution to the literature because it helps in linking theoretical development with sustainability in practice in a developing country context. The study may assist policy makers, communities and other relevant stakeholders in designing an integrated governance framework for renewable energy transition in rural areas.

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Bellew, Sarah Louise. "Investigation of the response of groups of wave energy devices." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2011. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/investigation-of-the-response-of-groups-of-wave-energy-devices(3db5db0d-a6af-4715-9f0b-19d53cf6dcf4).html.

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Placing wave energy devices within close proximity to each other can be beneficial as the costs of deployment, maintenance and infrastructure are reduced significantly compared to if the devices are deployed in isolation. A mathematical model is presented in this thesis which combines linear wave theory with a series of linear driven harmonic oscillators to model an array (group) of floating wave energy devices which move predominantly in heave (vertically) in a train of incident regular waves. Whilst similar mathematical models have been used previously to investigate interactions between fluids and groups of structures, much of the published work does not address array configurations or device constraints that are relevant to designers of structure-supported array devices. The suitability of linear theory for application to closely spaced arrays is assessed in this thesis through comparison to small-scale experimental data and by evaluation of the magnitude of second-order hydrodynamic forces. Values of mechanical damping and mass are determined for each element of an array in order to achieve the maximum power from an array of floats without requiring the knowledge of the motion of every float within the array in order to apply the forces to any one float. Further to this, the analysis of floats of varying geometry is performed in order to assess the possibility of array optimisation through the variation of float geometries within a closely spaced array.It is shown in this thesis that linear theory provides a reasonable prediction of the response of floats that are sufficiently close together to interact for most wave frequencies to which the arrays are likely to be subjected. Under the assumption of easily implementable mechanical damping, it is determined that the power output from an array of floats of equal geometry can be increased by specifying different magnitudes of mechanical damping on each float independently of the radiation damping. Variations in submerged float geometries for the purpose of manipulating array characteristics according to the incident wave frequency are best applied through the variation in draft of a single geometry. Variations in submerged float geometry which occur close to the free surface are found to be of the greatest significance. Where the float is uniform in cross-section, the most appropriate method to select float drafts within an array is found to be based on the evaluation of the total damping on each float.

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Mavindidze, Zororo. "The contribution of renewable energy technologies to sustainable community development in Rusitu Valley, Zimbabwe." Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/4066.

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Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS)
This exploratory study is based on the case of the Rusitu Valley, a low income rural community in Zimbabwe. Data was collected using largely qualitative methods and quantitative methods were used to obtain supportive descriptive statistics. Information elicited from focus group discussions conducted with members of the Rusitu Valley community as well as responses obtained from a brief structured questionnaire were used to abstract the Rusitu Valley as a complex adaptive system. Input from in-depth interviews with government representatives in energy policy, local government and non-governmental organisations as well as a review of secondary sources was used to support the analysis and confirm the contextual validity of the study. This study revealed that there is intimate connection between renewable energy technologies and sustainable community development. A key finding was that the contribution of renewable energy technologies in Rusitu Valley is mostly towards the economic dimensions of the community and is relatively limited with regard to social and environmental dimensions. Therefore, this study concluded that renewable energy technologies have not sufficiently contributed towards sustainable community development in the Rusitu Valley. This study also found that the contribution of renewable energy technologies is constrained not only by internal limitations but also external factors. A conclusion drawn from this study was that effective contribution of renewable energy technologies towards social, economic and environmental facets can be enhanced through mainstreaming of renewable energy in policy and planning, as well strengthening institutions and local capacity which would have the overall effect of sustainable community development in low income communities

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Dlamini, Letsiwe Thulisile Sibongile. "Investigating alternative funding sources for community equity ownership in renewable energy projects in South Africa." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13637.

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Includes bibliographical references.
The combined effect of a number of factors has forced the Government of South Africa to launch and seek to expand the renewable energy sector through the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REI4P). Such elements include environmental issues, especially climate change; the need to diversify energy sources in order for the country to be energy secure; and the developmental potential that investment in a new industry, in this instance the renewable energy industry, can bring in terms of job creation, economic growth and the exploitation of abundant natural resources. In addition to the REI4P, the Government has also been compelled to seek to expand energy supply in the country, in general, due to the energy crisis, which in turn, is closely associated with a population that is growing at a pace that is much faster than the rate at which energy can be readily supplied. Community Equity Ownership (CEO) or local community ownership is a unique feature of the REI4P that has recently come under close scrutiny due to its requirement for project companies to offer a minimum of 2.5% to 5% shares of their companies to local communities residing within a 50km radius of their renewable energy plants, in an effort to contribute toward their socio-economic development; the challenges presented by community trusts; and the subsequent resistance towards the notion of local community ownership by REI4P project companies. It is the subject of this research because it is still a critical and integral component of the REI4P and challenges associated with its financing have, in the past, jeopardised the accomplishment of the very goals for which it was constituted. The value of Social License to Operate (SLO) is that it can lay the foundation for positive relations to prevail between communities and Independent Power Producers (IPPs) in the pursuit of a viable renewable energy industry and increased energy supply in South Africa. To this end, the study demonstrates that whilst CEO is obligated in the REI4P, it also constitutes SLO because if communities own shares in REI4P projects, they are more likely to cooperate with them. Thus, the CEO, Socio-Economic Development (SED) and Enterprise Development (ED) requirements of the REI4P essentially constitute the SLO ‘building blocks’ for the Programme. Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) have been at the forefront of funding local community ownership, although other financial institutions, including commercial banks xiv have started financing it as well, while requiring guarantees and security from communities, which can offer neither. The continued implementation of the REI4P, as well as the launch of the Baseload IPP Programme and the Medium Term Risk Mitigation Project, will ultimately increase the total number of IPP Programmes in the country and will likely intensify the demand for finances to fund CEO. In view of this, where will the funding for this key aspect of the current and proposed IPP Programmes come from? This study sought to identify alternative funding options for CEO in order to ensure its continuity in both the REI4P and the proposed IPP Programmes. An exploratory research design was pursued for the study in view of data limitations arising from the infancy of the renewable energy sector in South Africa. Moreover, a questionnaire survey was undertaken and a purposive sampling technique was used to interrogate a select group of financial institutions and REI4P Independent Power Producers (IPPs), with a view to determine what their experiences have been in relation to funding CEO, as well as to identify alternative funding options for it, going forward. In this regard, a sample size of 15 was taken out of a combined total of 72 financial institutions and IPPs. Thematic content analysis was subsequently performed to process the data. The main risk associated with financing CEO that was identified by stakeholders has to do with a lack of security in lending to disadvantaged communities because they often have no collateral and can offer no guarantees that demonstrate their capacity to repay debts. Furthermore, the establishment of a Grant Scheme for funding CEO, on the one hand, and a Guarantee and Incentive Programme, on the other, wherein Government stands in as guarantor for communities as they borrow funds to facilitate CEO; were found to be potentially instrumental in widening the pool of funding for CEO. Increased vendor support and more ‘preferential’ loan terms and ‘softer’ loans from DFIs were also identified as critical in the endeavour to increase the funding sources for CEO. Although the use of the Government Pension Fund to warehouse shares on behalf of communities and utilising communal land as equity both hold some promise; they require further research. It is, therefore, concluded that there is potential for alternative funding options for community equity ownership in the REI4P. The study also found that, based on the experiences of survey respondents, there are inadequate sources of finance for CEO, in light of the increasing pressure on available financial opportunities. To this end, the delineation between the xv potential for funding local community shareholding in REI4P projects and actual access to funding is fundamental.

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Nolden, Colin. "Regulating the diffusion of renewable energy technologies : interactions between community energy and the feed-in tariff in the UK." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/9884.

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An ever increasing body of legislation and regulation is transforming the UK’s energy system and its surrounding national energy framework. Depending on the mechanisms that result from this process, new forms of engagement with energy, particularly electricity, might emerge. The current trajectory of UK energy policy leans towards a centralised scenario with a portfolio of centralised renewable energy technologies (i.e. geographically concentrated such as offshore wind), nuclear power stations and gas fired power stations with the option of Carbon Capture and Storage technologies if it becomes a commercially viable option (CCC, 2011). Forecasts predict that a combination of these technologies could place the UK on the right path to reach its 2050 carbon reduction commitments (UKERC, 2008). However, this approach fails to take broader benefits of decentralisation and localisation into account and many official documents such as the Microgeneration Strategy (DECC, 2011a) and those surrounding Community Energy Online (DECC, 2011b) point to a need for greater public engagement in the generation of energy in order to ‘derive greater benefits locally’ (DECC, 2011a: 45). The question remains in how far these diverging objectives can be achieved within the current regulatory environment as there is a lack of coordinated incentives in place to facilitate the development of new scales and ownership structures capable of promoting new forms of engagement at scales below the point at which economies of scales apply. This thesis seeks to establish what barriers are preventing community energy with the capacity to increase acceptance of renewable energy technologies while also contributing towards climate change action, energy security and the strengthening of local economic cycles from becoming more widely embedded in the UK. The main focus is on how ‘niche creation’ policies such as the feed-in tariff might provide the basis for overcoming these barriers by diffusing new scales and ownership structures of renewable energy technologies. Accompanying social innovations could potentially include more meaningful engagement with energy in general and renewable energy in particular, while also enabling communities willing to invest in renewable energy technologies to build resilient local energy infrastructures with the capacity to reduce the impact of increasing energy insecurity, fossil-fuel depletion and climate change constraints. In order to appreciate the potential of community energy in the UK, parallels are drawn to the governance of national energy frameworks in other European countries, Germany and Denmark in particular, that have provided the basis for successful community energy engagement.

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Greenhouse, Benjamin. "Community Characteristics and Their Influence on Community Renewable Energy Projects: A Case Study of Cang Dong Village, Hainan, China." Thesis, University of Waterloo, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10012/968.

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This thesis examines the characteristics of a community that positively influence the success of a community renewable energy project. As the first stage of a two-stage inductive research process, a review of relevant bodies of literature results in the development of 5 characteristics of a community that?based on the literature?have the potential to positively affect the success of a community renewable energy project. Those characteristics are: a large stock of social capital and a strong sense of community; effective leadership from local government and local organizations; past experience with cooperation and innovation, and access to technical resources; economic perceptions and realities; and biophysical resources appropriate to the technologies being used.

Following an examination of how these characteristics might manifest themselves in a Chinese context, the five characteristics were used as a heuristic to guide the second stage of the research process: a case study of a community biogas project in Cang Dong Village in China's Hainan province. This case study suggests that the success of Cang Dong's biogas project was directly influenced by four main factors: effective leadership from local government, access to technical resources, economic perceptions and realities, and biophysical resources appropriate to the technologies being used. The impact of the community's past experience with innovation & cooperation and their strong stock of social capital were more ambiguous; although the community had past experience with cooperative and innovative projects, along with a high stock of social capital, a direct link between these characteristics and the success of the biogas project could not be conclusively determined.

As a result of the case study, this thesis concludes with an outline of a general framework that could be used to evaluate the suitability of a community for a community renewable energy project. This outline is presented acknowledging the exploratory nature of this research and follows the need for more research on this topic.

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Ogunlade, Abimbola Adegoke. "Comparative cost-benefit analysis of renewable energy resources for rural community development in Nigeria / A.A. Ogunlade." Thesis, North-West University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10394/2646.

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Rural development by means of providing uninterruptible power supply has become a priority among developing countries. Nigeria especially has on its top agenda the mandate to provide clean and cost-effective means of energy to the rural communities, hardest hit by wave of incessant outages of electricity supply. Renewable Energy (RE), a clean form of energy that can be derived from natural sources is widely available throughout Nigeria but is not harnessed. In this dissertation a Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) framework is proposed for renewable energy towards rural community development in Nigeria as indicated in the 18-point recommendations of Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN). Moreover, a cost-benefit analysis tool is formulated and developed from the CBA framework in order to analyze comparatively the costs and intangible benefits of renewable energy projects for rural application. A case study demonstrating the working methodology of the proposed framework is presented in order to establish the cost-benefit components by assessing the comparative cost-benefit analysis of RE at a rural site of Nigeria. Erinjiyan Ekiti rural area is located for CBA assessment with three RE resources (solar, wind and small hydro) selected for consideration. Through the application of Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), the respondents' willingness to pay for RE supply is obtained and RE benefits in monetary terms computed. Using three economic decision criteria namely: Net Present Value (NPV), Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR); the three RE resources are ranked according to their economic viability. The result of the analysis provides useful insight to investors and decision makers into how RE projects in rural community should be conducted. Foremost, it is revealed that all three RE options will be economically viable if implemented, though adequate caution must be taken when making a decision. Based on the CBA assessment, the Small-Hydro Power (SHP) option is ranked as the most viable option. However, this is swiftly negated if RE social impact, such as the spiritual belief of the rural dwellers, who rely on the only potential river as a medium of communication with their ancestors, are taken into consideration. Furthermore, a sensitivity assessment of the three RE options revealed that only solar photovoltaic (PV) option is marginally viable, thus turns negative upon an assumed increase in discount rate of only 17%. Herein, the proposed CBA framework provides a useful insight into an efficient method of appraising RE projects in rural communities. A CBA simulation tool is formulated and adapted from the CBA framework to enable quicker, reliable and automated means of assessing RE projects with a view to making wise investment decision.
Thesis (M.Ing. (Development and Management Engineering))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

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Mbulayi, Shingirai P. "Energy and sustainable development: the case of Dewedzo rural community in Zimbabwe." Thesis, University of Fort Hare, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10353/866.

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Energy poverty is a concept that has gained significance quite recently. Its significance has been prompted by the realization that without sustainable modern energy alternatives for the rural poor, prospects for rural transformation remains low. The recognition of modern energy as one of the missing link in rural transformation comes amid the growing concern about the negative effects of relying on traditional energy services and the increasing forecasts that most developing countries are likely to miss their MDG targets by 2015. Drawing on the Modernization and the Sustainable Development Approach, this study concluded that improving the quantity and quality of energy services consumed by the rural poor can counteract rural underdevelopment and enhance rural social and economic transformation in Dewedzo. The study confirmed that energy poor households are prone to various social, economic and environmental detriments such as poor health, hunger, malnutrition, poor education and missed socio economic opportunities. By addressing rural people‟s energy needs, more nexus can be injected into rural productivity and the economic social outputs of this process can in turn increase the pace at which MDGs can be achieved.

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Robertson, Laurie Lee. "Enacting change with renewable energy : a situational analysis of Udny's Community Turbine and Trust : towards an ecological sociology." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 2018. http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=238633.

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Energy is part of everyday life and renewable energy technologies are increasingly becoming part of our lived environments. Social scientists are responding to renewable energy technologies by investigating what people think about wind turbines (Aitken, 2010; Pasqualetti, 2011a, 2011b) and the distribution of community benefits (Cowell et al, 2011; Bristow et al 2012). This thesis adds to this body of research by describing Udny's renewable energy project and its capacity to effect change. More specifically, I examine what this community-owned wind turbine does with other situational elements to transform life within the community. Using the cartographic methods developed by Adele E. Clarke (2005), I map out the situation by drawing out the elements – this includes objects, people, organisations and discursive practices – and tracing their relations. Thinking sociologically about situational elements and their relational effects provokes a move towards ecological sociology and re-imagines social life as the effect of interconnected entities, such as materials and meanings, thoughts and actions, people and objects (Morton, 2007, 2010). Mapping the interconnectedness of societal ecologies depicts social life as neither distinct from the natural world (Catton and Dunlap, 1978, 1980) nor symmetrical with natures (Callon, 1986; Akrich and Latour, 1992; Asdal, 2008) but, rather, as part of relationally emergent ecologies. Udny's community renewable energy project illustrates the relational emergence of a social ecology, as the turbine and trust work with existing and emergent entities to enact change (Barad, 2007; Harman, 2009; Bennett, 2010; Morton, 2010, 2016). It is by doing things together that situational elements transform life within Udny (Clarke, 2005; Yusoff, 2013).

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Süsser, Diana [Verfasser], and Beate M. W. [Akademischer Betreuer] Ratter. "People-Powered Local Energy Transition : Mitigating Climate Change with Community-Based Renewable Energy in North Frisia / Diana Süsser. Betreuer: Beate M.W. Ratter." Hamburg : Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, 2016. http://d-nb.info/1111778353/34.

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Süsser, Diana Verfasser], and Beate M. W. [Akademischer Betreuer] [Ratter. "People-Powered Local Energy Transition : Mitigating Climate Change with Community-Based Renewable Energy in North Frisia / Diana Süsser. Betreuer: Beate M.W. Ratter." Hamburg : Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, 2016. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:18-80340.

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Jansén, Jan. "Agriculture, energy and sustainability : case studies of a local farming community in Sweden /." Uppsala : Swedish Univ. of Agricultural Sciences (Sveriges lantbruksuniv.), 2000. http://epsilon.slu.se/avh/2000/91-576-5767-X.pdf.

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Yuan, Chen. "RESILIENT DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS WITH COMMUNITY MICROGRIDS." The Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1480478081556766.

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Fergen, Joshua Travis. "Emerging Energy Geographies of Wind: A Multi-Scalar Approach to Investigate the Relationshisp to Wind Energy across Geographies and Social Groups." The Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1587710844791088.

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Lewandowski, Samantha Whitney. "Consumer Engagement With Efficient And Renewable Energy Technology: Case Studies On Smart Meter Utilization And Support For A Community Anaerobic Biodigester System In Vermont." ScholarWorks @ UVM, 2018. https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis/859.

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Residential electricity consumption in the United States has many adverse impacts, such as greenhouse gas emissions, dependence on fossil fuels, and costs. Efficient and renewable energy technologies have the potential to help mitigate some of these impacts, but appear to be under-utilized in the United States. One major barrier to expanding the deployment of these kinds of technologies and maximizing the benefits they can provide is a lack of consumer engagement. The overall purpose of this thesis is to better understand the extent to which efficient and renewable energy technologies are being engaged with and what factors may influence such engagement (or lack thereof) through case studies on smart meters and a community anaerobic digester system (CADS) in Vermont. In this thesis, engagement involves awareness, support, and utilization. Additionally, a subset of awareness (a precursor to awareness for many) was examined in each of these studies, which is interest in receiving additional information on the technology. While each case study focuses on different aspects of engagement that are unique to each smart meters and CADS, there is some overlap on the topics explored, especially when it comes to awareness of the technology, potential concerns about the technology, and interest in receiving additional information on it. The focus of the first study is on how efficiently smart meters have been utilized by residential electricity customers in Vermont and what factors may influence this. This study was conducted via a statewide telephone survey in Vermont and involved a sample that was statistically representative of the state. These data were analyzed via quantitative analysis. The focus of the second study is on local support of a CADS in Vermont and what factors may influence this. This study was conducted via a mailout survey to houses located in or near the area where the community anaerobic digester was located, and the data were analyzed via quantitative and qualitative analysis. In both studies, limitations to engagement with the technologies were found. In the smart meter study, less than 50% of the surveyed customers reported having a smart meter and, for those who did report having a smart meter, less than 20% of them thought that the smart meter had reduced their electricity use. In the CADS study, 52.1% of respondents reported being familiar with the CADS project, and 69.8% reported support for the project. However, other forms of support for the project, such as WTP for the Cow Power program or willingness to drop of food scraps to the CADS, were more limited. Additionally, a variety of demographic and other factors were found to have a statistically significant impact on or relationship to consumer engagement with these technologies. Overall, the results show that there is some engagement with these technologies, but more can be done to bolster engagement with them. One potential strategy to increase engagement with these technologies may be to tailor outreach according to factors that correspond to different levels of engagement. It is hoped that the results from these studies can be used to help improve consumer engagement with these and other efficient and renewable energy technologies, thus hopefully expanding their utilization and benefits they can provide in the process.

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Ranaboldo, Matteo. "Design of off-grid renewable energy community electrification projects : analysis of micro-scale resource variations and development of optimization methods." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/286287.

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Projects relying on renewable energies are a suitable and sustainable option to electrify isolated communities autonomously. These systems produce electricity in a clean and environmentally respectful way and their cost is often lower than national grid extension. Hybrid systems that combine different energy resources (wind and solar) and distribution through microgrids are the most efficient design configurations. When considering hybrid systems and microgrids, the design of rural electrification projects is referred to as the AVEREMS problem. The optimization of the AVEREMS problem is a complex task that requires the use of specific support tools. In this context, some shortcomings have been encountered in the current state-of-the-art in the design of off-grid electrification projects based on renewable energies, in specific: the lack of knowledge about detailed wind resource studies for this kind of projects and the need of procedures for solving the AVEREMS problem considering generation also far from the demand in order to take advantage of best resource areas. The main objective of this thesis is to tackle these limitations by means of: 1) defining a method for detailed wind resource assessment in rural electrification projects, 2) the development and 3) application of procedures to solve the AVEREMS problem considering micro-scale resource variations and generation in every point of a community (being a demand or a no-demand point). Firstly, a method for detailed wind resource assessment is presented relying on the use of micro-scale wind flow models: the method is validated in two mountainous communities and applied for the design of a real project in Cape Verde. Then, different solving procedures are developed: first some indicators are proposed to support algorithms¿ design, and then two procedures (a deterministic heuristic and a metaheuristic algorithm) are presented in order to solve the AVEREMS problem. Different algorithm versions are analyzed in order to select the ones that give best results. The proposed algorithms, besides considering generation in every point of a certain area (being a demand or a no-demand point), enhance the performance of the currently available tools. Finally, the design of a real electrification project in Nicaragua is carried out including a micro-scale wind resource assessment and the application of the developed metaheuristic procedure for design optimization. The wind resource assessment method and the solving procedures developed in this Thesis can be easily applied to support the design of off-grid rural electrification projects with renewable energies. Their utilization will improve projects efficiency and sustainability reducing some of the technical issues that still limit their implementation in isolated communities.
Los proyectos de electrificación basados en energías renovables han demostrado ser una opción adecuada y sostenible para abastecer comunidades aisladas de forma autónoma. Estos sistemas producen energía de manera limpia y respetuosa del medio ambiente y su coste es a menudo inferior al de extender la red eléctrica nacional. Las configuraciones de diseño más fiables y eficientes utilizan sistemas híbridos que combinan varios recursos (eólico y solar) y distribución mediante microrredes. El diseño de proyectos de electrificación rural considerando sistemas híbridos y microrredes se ha definido como el problema AVEREMS. La optimización del problema AVEREMS es una tarea compleja que requiere el uso de herramientas de soporte. Actualmente, el proceso de diseño de proyectos de electrificación basados en energía renovables presenta algunas limitaciones. Entre ellas, destacan la falta de conocimientos sobre estudios del recurso eólico y la necesidad de procedimientos para resolver el problema AVEREMS incluyendo la generación alejada de los puntos de consumo para aprovechar las áreas de mayor potencial. El principal objetivo de esta tesis es abordar dichas limitaciones, mediante: 1) la definición de un método para evaluar en detalle el recurso eólico en proyectos de electrificación rural; 2) el desarrollo y 3) la implementación de procedimientos para resolver el problema AVEREMS considerando la variación del recurso a micro-escala y generación en todos los puntos (sean estos de consumo o de no-consumo) de una determinada área. Primero se presenta un método para realizar estudios del recurso eólico mediante el uso de modelos de flujo de viento a micro-escala. El método se valida en dos comunidades montañosas y se aplica para el diseño de proyectos reales en Cabo Verde. Sucesivamente, se desarrollan diferentes procedimientos resolutivos: primero se definen unos indicadores de soporte al diseño, y sucesivamente se presentan dos algoritmos (uno heurístico y otro meta-heurístico) para resolver el problema AVEREMS. Se analizan diferentes versiones de los algoritmos para finalmente seleccionar las que obtienen los mejores resultados. Además de considerar generación en todos los puntos (de consumo o de no-consumo) de una cierta área, los algoritmos propuestos mejoran considerablemente las prestaciones de los métodos disponibles actualmente. Finalmente, se analiza el diseño de un proyecto de electrificación en una comunidad rural en Nicaragua incluyendo la evaluación de recurso a micro-escala y la aplicación del algoritmo meta-heurístico para la optimización del diseño. La metodología para la evaluación del recurso eólico y los algoritmos resolutivos desarrollados en esta tesis se pueden fácilmente aplicar para suportar el diseño de proyectos de electrificación rural con energías renovables. Su utilización permitirá mejorar la eficiencia y sostenibilidad de estos proyectos reduciendo algunos de los problemas técnicos que limitan su implementación en comunidades aisladas

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Skill, Emily E. "Developing, Adopting, and Executing 100% Net-Renewable Electricity Resolutions at the Local Level." DigitalCommons@USU, 2019. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/7640.

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In the absence of national leadership on climate policy, municipalities are adopting resolutions to reduce their carbon footprint and transition to clean energy. However, what leads to successful adoption of these resolutions and how to effectively implement climate goals at the community level needs further exploration. To investigate these questions, this thesis examines the resolutions adopted in Salt Lake City, Park City, and Moab, Utah to transition to 100% renewable electricity by 2032. Data was collected through documents, such as city reports and newspapers, and interviews with government officials, city staff, and community members involved with the resolution process. A time series analysis and thematic analysis were used to determine casual events and identify fundamental themes within the data. Each city’s plan for resolution execution was compared to the approaches and techniques outlined in the community-based social marketing framework and the theory of diffusion of innovations. These findings deliver a transferable five-step framework to assist other cities in adopting similar resolutions and strategies to engage community members with practices that will help cities achieve these ambitious resolutions.

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Bode, Christiaan César. "An analysis of collective ownership models to promote renewable energy development and climate justice in South Africa / Christiaan César Bode." Thesis, North-West University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10394/10004.

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This study broadly investigates South African energy policy with specific emphasis on the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP). It investigates how the procurement programme links to rights-based climate justice principles. Climate justice principles have the potential to greatly impact the socio-economic development characteristics of the renewable energy sector. These principles incorporate the notions of participation and self-representation, equality, and the anti-commodification of nature, thus linking to the collective ownership aspect of renewable energy plants. Depending on the procurement model chosen, renewable energy has the potential to offer true broad-based empowerment and developmental benefits to the country. A neo-Gramscian theoretical framework was selected in order to draw links between the renewable energy sector and the political economy which are so entrenched in the Minerals- Energy Complex (MEC). The neo-Gramscian framework demonstrates strength in the uncovering of the shift in the social relations of production and how these interact with the state and the international class project. It is utilised to expose the character of power and hegemony and how the needs of transnational capital are satisfied within local perceptions of development. This research revealed that the renewable energy sector has been annexed by the transnational neoliberal agenda through the non-participative nature of the REIPPPP. To challenge this power relation, the neo-Gramscian notion of a counter-hegemony is particularly pertinent. Community renewables, the focus of this research, are presented as such a counterhegemonic alternative. A number of European countries have successfully integrated community owned renewable energy plants into their energy sectors. Various case studies of community renewables in Denmark, Sweden and the UK respectively are proposed as alternative ownership models to those being promoted in the REIPPPP in South Africa. Barriers to community renewables in the South African context have been identified. These identified barriers allow one to make informed predictions about the future ownership of the renewable energy sector in South Africa. Recommendations are suggested that would work towards promoting a more inclusive and participatory renewable energy sector with greater adherence to climate justice principles.
M. Development and Management, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

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Mroz-Barrett, Meaghan. "Utility Scale Solar Projects in California: An Initial Survey." DigitalCommons@CalPoly, 2015. https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/1430.

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The lack of a comprehensive database for both concentrating and photovoltaic utility-scale solar power projects, those with a generation capacity of greater than 50 MW, hinders the ability of researchers and policy makers to examine the state of solar development in the state of California. This research project seeks to fill this gap in understanding by creating a database of proposed and developed projects in order to examine trends in proposals, process time, approvals, and construction starts. Existing literature was evaluated to determine potential factors for project success in approval and construction. Upon determination of these factors, the project database was developed through use of publicly available data and extensive Internet searches of planning documents, industry releases, and articles on existing and proposed projects. The completed database, containing eighty projects, was analyzed to provide an initial look at the overall state of solar project development in California. This report details these early findings as well as areas for further research. The analysis indicates that, while California has a high amount of proposed projects and generation capacity, many projects do not reach the end of the public approval process and fewer still enter construction and operation.

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El, Badawi El Najjar Rachad. "Collaborative methods and tools to remotely develop multi-sites engineering standards : the case of GE renewable energy-hydro." Thesis, Université Grenoble Alpes (ComUE), 2017. http://www.theses.fr/2017GREAI002/document.

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Dans un marché mondial, de nombreuses sociétés sont passées d’une stratégie d’entreprise centralisée où les produits sont conçus dans un lieu central et fabriqués dans les centres régionaux à une entreprise décentralisée, puis à une organisation répartie sur les régions. Le contexte Industriel de la thèse est GE Renewable Energy – Hydro solutions qui conçoit et fabrique des centrales d’énergie hydraulique. L’organisation GE hydro est dispersée sur 5 régions (Amérique du Nord, Amérique Latine, Europe, Chine et Inde). Chaque région est devenue une partie de cette organisation distribuée où sont conçues et fabriquées des turbines hydrauliques / générateurs. Cependant, de nouveaux défis ont surgis dans ce processus de développement de produits distribués : les besoins spécifiques à un marché, les différentes pratiques de travail, des différentes méthodes de conception, en plus des différences culturelles entre les régions.Afin de rationaliser ces différences, le développement de produits distribués comportait plusieurs objectifs. Par exemple, la standardisation des processus d'ingénierie, le développement des guides de conception commune pour les outils d'ingénierie, l'harmonisation des procédures de qualité et de résolution des problèmes. L’organisation Hydro a confié ces objectifs aux collectifs d'ingénierie virtuels qui sont dispersés dans toutes les régions.Notre recherche vise à étudier et à soutenir les collectifs d'ingénierie virtuels dans la co-création des standards techniques propres à l'entreprise. Les collectifs d'ingénierie virtuels impliquent des concepteurs, des ingénieurs industriels, des techniciens ainsi que les utilisateurs finaux. Ils devaient collaborer à distance afin de co-développer les standards techniques et plus tard de les adopter dans les projets des clients.Les collectifs d'ingénierie virtuels ont été au cœur de notre démarche de standardisation, la thèse a abordé les questions de recherche suivantes :1."Quel processus et plateforme collaboratifs de standardisation pourront permettre aux collectifs d'ingénierie de co-développer leurs standards à distance ?"2."Quelles sont les caractéristiques des différents types de collectifs virtuels qui conviennent respectivement au processus collaboratif de standardisation ?"3."Quel processus opérationnel doit être défini pour faciliter le travail des collectifs d'ingénierie virtuels dans une organisation gérée par projets ?"De la littérature, nous avons défini et différencié les types des collectifs d'ingénierie virtuels en tant que communautés de pratiques ou d'intérêt virtuelles, des équipes virtuelles et des réseaux d'apprentissage. Grâce à des observations et des réflexions autour de la pratique, nous avons développé et testé nos propositions. Les contributions principales de la thèse sont résumées telles que :1.Un modèle de processus collaboratif de standardisation pour co-développer les standards techniques à distance.2.HySPeC - une plateforme collaboratif de standardisation - pour répondre aux différentes exigences du processus collaboratif de standardisation.3.Un modèle dynamique pour caractériser les collectifs virtuels en fonction de leurs phases de développement.4.Un cadre des collectifs virtuels pour sélectionner, différencier et adapter les collectifs virtuels en fonction des objectifs du projet.5.Un processus opérationnel des collectifs virtuels pour faciliter l'adoption et la mise en œuvre des standards d'ingénierie dans les projets.La direction chez GE Hydro a considéré les propositions comme un facteur de succès pour co-développer les standards d'ingénierie à distance. Les différents types des collectifs virtuels peuvent s’adapter au processus de standardisation collaboratif et utiliser intuitivement les fonctionnalités de la plateforme collaborative. L'approche a également fourni un processus opérationnel pour faciliter l'intégration et le travail des collectifs d'ingénierie virtuels au sein de l'organisation hydro
In a global economy, the conquest of exploring and acquiring new markets has led many companies to expand their business around the globe. Many companies adopted a strategy of shifting from a centralized company where products were designed and manufactured in one region to a decentralized company, and then to a distributed organization over the regions. Our thesis context is GE Renewable Energy – Hydro solutions that designs and manufactures hydraulic power plants. GE hydro organization is scattered over 5 regions (North America, Latin America, Europe, China and India). Each region became part of this distributed organization where they participated in the designing and the manufacturing of the hydraulic turbines/ generators. However, new challenges arose in this distributed product development process: specific market needs, different working practices, various design methods, multitude of design tools in addition to the cultural differences among the regions.In order to rationalize the regional differences, the distributed development of hydraulic turbines and generators entailed several objectives. For example, standardization of engineering processes, development of common design guides for engineering tools, harmonization of quality sheets and troubleshooting procedures. Hydro organization has entrusted these objectives to the virtual engineering collectives who are dispersed in all the regions.Our research aimed at studying and supporting the virtual engineering collectives in the co-creation of corporate engineering standards and guidelines. The virtual engineering collectives involved the designers, industrial engineers, technicians as well as the end-users. They had to remotely collaborate in order to co-develop the engineering standards and later on to adopt them in customer projects.Since the virtual engineering collectives were at the core of our standardization approach, the thesis addressed the following research questions:1- “which collaborative standardization process and platform could enable the engineering collectives to co-develop their standards at distance?”2- “what are the characteristics of the different virtual collectives’ types which suit respectively the collaborative standardization process?”3- “which operational process has to be defined to ease the work of the virtual engineering collectives within a project based management style?”From the literature, we defined and differentiated the virtual engineering collectives’ types as virtual communities of practice and/or interest, virtual teams and networks of learning. Through observations and reflections from the practice, we have developed and tested our propositions. The main thesis’ contributions are summarized as follows:1- The collaborative standardization process to co-develop the engineering standards at distance.2- HySPeC templates – the collaborative standardization platform - to respond to the different requirements of the collaborative standardization process.3- The virtual collectives’ dynamics (VCD) model to characterize the virtual collectives in function of their development phases.4- The virtual collectives’ framework (VCF) to select, differentiate and fit the virtual collectives in function of the project’s objectives.5- The virtual collectives’ operational process to facilitate the adoption and the implementation of the engineering standards in the customers’ projects.The top management at GE Hydro found the proposed collaborative standardization approach able to co-develop the engineering standards at distance. The different virtual collectives’ types can fit and adapt to the collaborative standardization process and intuitively use the collaborative platform’ functionalities. The approach also provided an operational process to facilitate the integration and the work of the virtual engineering collectives within the distributed hydro organization

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HAN, YU. "The sustainable development at the community level: A case study of Sweden." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för geovetenskaper, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-448613.

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The research focuses on sustainable development at the community level in Sweden. Following the trend of sustainable development, the concept of distributed energy has emerged in the European Union. Authorities at all levels in Sweden have also actively promoted the deployment of distributed energy projects. Thereby the sustainable development of community-level has begun to flourish. The study selects five relatively mature sustainability cases to explore sustainable development at the community level in Sweden. Three cases are from Sweden, and the remaining two comparative cases are from Germany and Denmark. Based on qualitative research and case study, the thesis studies the implementation of relevant cases. It analyzes the differences and related challenges between the three Swedish communities and the German/Danish case regarding sustainable development. The study shows that all community cases have set the energy transition in the transportation sector as a priority in the plan. While paying attention to the energy transition, the three Swedish communities also pay more attention to the improvement of social equality and welfare in sustainability. Therefore, compared to the cases in the other two countries, the sustainable development of the three Swedish communities seems to be more balanced. However, whether for the three Swedish communities or the German/Danish case, there are still many challenges to realize the integration of sustainability strategies into community development.

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Stjernquist, Desatnik Marie. "Energy Access for the Most Vulnerable Groups : A Study on the Long-Term Effects of Energy Access in a Refugee Camp Context with Inclusion of the Host Community." Thesis, KTH, Energiteknik, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-256230.

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The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development outlines 17 goals to end poverty and ensure the right to development for everyone. Previous research has found that 2/3 of the goals partly depend their success upon whether SDG 7 Ensure access to sustainable, affordable and modern energy for all is achieved or not. Given that the Agenda targets everyone it cannot be achieved without reaching the most vulnerable groups, among these groups are migrants, refugees and those internally displaced. Low- and middle-income countries host 84% of this group. Almost 30% of refugees live in managed camp settings and it has been estimated that 80% of these have minimal or no access to electricity. For cooking needs a majority depend on traditional cooking with firewood and charcoal. In many cases this spurs tensions and at times conflict with the local host community, -who often also heavily depend on this resource. On the national level energy is often seen as part of the long-term development planning and as refugee camps and humanitarian setting are recognized as temporary by the host country this creates a vacuum. However, the reality is that 2/3 of all refugees are in protracted refugee situations and the average lifespan of a camp is 17 years. This thesis studied the links between energy and the nexus of environment, social stability and economy in a refugee camp context, and outlined how different energy systems could impact the situations for both groups and also for the relationship between these groups. This was done using the Long-range Energy Alternative Planning systems (LEAP) and by creating a Multi Criteria Analysis template. The case study of Kakuma camp in Turkana County in the North of Kenya was used. The results showed that there are positive and negative aspects related to all energy systems studied here (for household energy access both for electricity and cooking). A refugee camp is a highly complex setting, operating both under the authority of local actors and of international humanitarian actors. For electricity access, Solar Home Systems was found to be a good choice due to the fast deployment time and the low level of infrastructure needed. For already existing households PV Hybrid mini-grids are to be recommended. For cooking options, it was found that for Turkana county, rather than just focusing on GHG emissions it is vital to mitigate deforestation seeing the county’s vulnerability to land-use change. However, changing from firewood and charcoal would affect the livelihood of the host community who depends on the income deriving from the charcoal business. This highlights some of the complexity of the study and the importance of knowing the local context before carrying out energy interventions in a refugee camp and surrounding area. The author’s conclusion is that this methodology could be implemented on any camp setting seeing that modern and clean energy access poses many benefits to people across the world, whether in an urban, rural or refugee camp setting. The thesis found that the main barriers identified for electricity projects of scale are the current funding structure of humanitarian organizations and national government’s attitude towards the camp.

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Cruickshank, Kyle Mark. "The perceived visual impacts and attitudes of the Grahamstown community towards the Waainek Wind-Farm." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011768.

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Renewable energy has become an important feature of most modern economies with clean and non-exhaustible sources of power being given a greater significance. Wind energy is one of the favoured renewable, as it is (2013) generally the cheapest and most mature technology available for commercial use. The South African government, as outlined by the Department of Energy's Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), aims to install 5 GW (Gigawatts) of wind energy by 2020. However, South Africa has had little experience in the wind energy industry which is limited to two projects, Klipheuwel (2002) and Darling (2008). Much effort has been dedicated to calculating balance sheet costs, which carries uncertainty due to the high reliance on country specific and site specific variables. An aspect which deserves more attention, and is often ignored, is the public‟s attitudes towards local wind farm developments, which have been known to "make or break" a project during the planning stages. Public backlashes have mostly been concerned with the visual "intrusiveness" of wind farms in the landscape. Detrimental effects on scenery, while seemingly innocuous, are acknowledged as being the single largest barrier to successful wind farm development. Individuals within an area become sentimentally attached to their surroundings, where significant rapid changes in the landscape are viewed as "damage". Economics recognises such declines in scenic resources as market failures, where an externalised cost is passed on to the public and is often not accounted for by private parties responsible for the liability. The primary objective therefore was to measure the magnitude of the visual impact, caused by the Waainek Wind Farm, on the Grahamstown community. Conventional NIMBY¹ (not in my back yard) reasoning, which seeks to explain local wind farm resistance, has attracted criticism with regard to its simplistic approach to wind farm problem identification. Contemporary arguments propose that NIMBY is a poor explanation for the trouble experienced on the local level because it groups problems into one all-encompassing term, leaving much of the discontent unexplained. Instead, the NIMBY explanation is really a broad set of unattended problems, largely resulting from the unsound practices present in the public participation process. Insufficient community involvement and disparities in the negotiation power structures have become the recent focus in wind farm literature. Essentially, these disparities force opposition groups to select factors which may seem more serious to developers, leading to ineffective remedial measures because the core underlying problems are not being remedied. Thus these considerations formed an additional area of investigation. No NIMBY effect was found for the Grahamstown community, as support for both the local and general level was roughly 80%. The public participation process on the other hand revealed that while many found the practices of the developer to be unfair, attitudes towards the wind farm were not adversely affected, especially for the lower income Grahamstown East areas. While the public participation process in this instance did not have any effect on people’s attitudes, careful inspection of the circumstances need to be given. Wind farms are new to South Africa, where the novelty and benefits are the focus of enthusiasm. Job opportunities as well as clean energy are positive drivers for attitudes; however given time, once the anticipation for wind farms dulls, real problems may be revealed. Thus it is crucial to implement good practice procedures during the public participation process, especially when national adoption rates of wind energy are low. Early implementation of an effective public participation process system will ensure that when major problems do arise in future projects, experience and institutional processes would have had ample opportunity to evolve appropriately over a period of time. The double bounded Contingent Valuation Method was used to value the impact of the wind farm on the Waainek scenery through a hypothetical scenario based procedure which presented pictures of the landscape before and after the wind farm had been installed. Based on the perceived impact of the wind farm, respondents were asked their Willingness to Pay to relocate the development, based solely on visual impacts. Learning design Contingent Valuation (Bateman et al., 2008) is a novel technique employed to familiarize respondents with the hypothetical market institution as well as the scenic goods being valued. Average Willingness to Pay was found to be R67 per month, with a final total monthly negative visual impact of R104,000 to R121,000 per month for the entire Grahamstown community. Grahamstown Central (middle-high income) residents were more likely to pay than Grahamstown East (low-middle income) East residents because of socio-economic differences present in each area. A ranking exercise determined that while negative visual impacts are present, the overall benefits derived from the wind farm are potentially much higher. Additionally, positive scenic improvements were found, but were not measured due to time constraints, and would have worked to reduce the net visual impact of the Waainek Wind Farm. ¹Problem where individuals support the general concept of wind power, but when it comes to local implementation, opposition to the development arises within the same group.

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Dobigny, Laure. "Quand l'énergie change de mains : socio-anthropologie de l'autonomie énergétique locale au moyen d'énergies renouvelables en Allemagne, Autriche et France." Thesis, Paris 1, 2016. http://www.theses.fr/2016PA01H230.

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En Europe, le développement des énergies renouvelables (EnR) est porté par des acteurs jusqu'ici atypiques dans le secteur énergétique : des particuliers, agriculteurs et collectivités locales. Si bien qu'en Allemagne, plus de 50 % des capacités de production d'EnR appartiennent à des citoyens. De plus en plus de communes rurales atteignent ainsi une autonomie énergétique locale, produisant autant voir plus que leurs consommations, connectées aux réseaux énergétiques nationaux ou non (micro-réseaux). Qu'est-ce qui a amené ces citoyens et élus à devenir individuellement et collectivement autonomes ? Et quelles sont les implications de cette réappropriation locale de l'énergie sur les représentations et usages énergétiques, l'organisation sociale, les solidarités, l'économie locale ou l'identité collective ? Ces questionnements ont guidé la réalisation d'une étude socio-anthropologique auprès de cinq communes en Allemagne, Autriche et France. Cette analyse transnationale compare également deux échelles de l'autonomie énergétique : individuelle (domestique) et collective (commune). Un changement d'échelle qui permet d'interroger le rôle du système technique dans les usages énergétiques ou encore celui, précurseur et central, que jouent les agriculteurs dans le choix des EnR - pour mieux saisir son sens social. Le choix de l'autonomie locale et l'alternative qu'il constitue, au sein même du macro-système énergétique, a en effet une dimension politique, sociale, écologique, technique, économique et symbolique. Car finalement lorsque l'énergie change de mains, le pouvoir aussi
The development of renewable energy (RE) in Europe has been sustained, inter alia, by unconventional players in the energy sector: individuals, fanners, and local communities. As a result, over 50% of renewable energy generation capacity in Germany is citizen-owned. Thus more and more rural communities are achieving local energy independence, producing as much or even more than they consume, whether they are connected to national power grids or not (microgrids). What has led these citizens and local governments to become individually and collectively energy self-sufficient? And what are the implications of this local appropriation of energy on representations of energy and its use, social organization, social cohesion, local economies, and collective identity? These questions have guided this socio-anthropological study of five communities in Germany, Austria, and France. The transnational analysis also compares two levels of energy independence: individual (domestic) and collective (community). Changing the level of analysis makes it possible to question the role of the technical system in energy use, as well as the pioneering and key role farmers play in the choice of renewables - in order to better understand its social meaning. Within the large technical system, the choice of local energy independence, and the alternative it represents, has political, social, environmental, technical, economic, and symbolic dimensions. Because, ultimately, when energy changes hands, power does as well

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Manrique, Ana Katherine Rodríguez. "Diretrizes para a sustentabilidade de uma minirrede de sistemas solares fotovoltaicos em uma região isolada da Colômbia." Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná, 2015. http://repositorio.utfpr.edu.br/jspui/handle/1/1377.

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CAPES
Este trabalho apresenta o desenvolvimento de um estudo técnico social para definir as diretrizes que garantam a sustentabilidade de uma minirrede baseada em sistemas solares fotovoltaicos, localizados nas Zonas Não Interconectadas (ZNI) da Colômbia. A literatura da pesquisa está baseada na importância da energia elétrica e das construções sustentáveis para o homem e nos princípios de energia solar e de minirredes baseadas em sistemas solares fotovoltaicos. Após este levantamento, aplicou-se o método de pesquisa documental para contextualizar o leitor com os aspectos mais importantes sobre a Colômbia e sua realidade hoje. A partir destes aspectos foi possível concentrar a pesquisa em uma região, selecionada a partir de critérios de recurso solar disponível, economia, segurança, saúde e educação. Uma vez escolhida a região, foi feita uma pesquisa de campo em que foram entrevistados os agentes que podem influenciar no funcionamento de uma minirrede. Também foram observados os aspectos técnicos relacionados com as construções e a eficiência energética desta região, constatando que a mesma já contou, em alguma ocasião, com sistemas solares fotovoltaicos, mas estes foram vendidos pela própria comunidade por não encontrarem utilidade nenhuma neles. A partir das respostas encontradas nas entrevistas foi feita uma proposta de gestão da minirrede baseada em sistemas solares fotovoltaicos. Concluiu-se que é primordial que os agentes técnicos e administrativos do sistema como um todo tenham contato contínuo com o usuário para entender as suas necessidades e conseguir satisfazê-las com a instalação da minirrede. Também se observou que é importante criar no usuário um sentido de posse pela minirrede, identificando os benefícios educativos, de saúde e econômicos que esta nova tecnologia traz para ele. Este estudo abre as portas para novas pesquisas de avaliação e descrição das diretrizes propostas.
This research presents the development of a social-technical study to define guidelines to ensure the sustainability of a mini-grid based on solar photovoltaic systems located in Non Interconnected Areas (NIA) of Colombia. The literature of this research is based on the importance of energy and sustainable buildings to people, the principles of solar PV, and mini-grid based on solar photovoltaic systems. After this firt part, was applied the method of documentary research to contextualize the reader with the main relevant aspects of Colombia related to the research. From these aspects, it was possible to focus the research to a region, which was chosen by criterias such as: solar resource, economy, security, health and education. When the area was chosen, it was made a field survey. In this survey the agents that influence the operation of a mini network were interviwed. Also, it was observed the technical aspects of buildings, and the energy efficiency in this region. As a result it was observed that in the past there were PV solar systems, but these were sold by the community because they did not find them useful. From the interview answers, it was made a proposal about the management of the mini-grid based on solar photovoltaic systems. In conclusion, it is essential that the technical and administrative agents that make part of this system have continuous contact with the user to understand their needs and satisfy them with the installation of mini-grid. It is also important to create a sense of belonging from the user to the mini-grid, identifying the benefits, educational, health and economic that this new technology brings to him. This study opens the door to new research about evaluations and descriptions about the proposed guidelines.

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Soeiro, Susana Teixeira. "Essays on renewable energy communities." Doctoral thesis, 2022. http://hdl.handle.net/10773/33475.

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Environmental and economic trends of the last decades have forced the world to urgently rethink current energy markets and energy supply. Thus, a deeper study on Renewable Energy Communities (REC) is a recent and emerging concern due to their relevant role in some energy markets and, in some cases, their key role in the future. This new generation of citizen intervention presents itself to democratize the energy sector in all its phases, from production to supply. Community energy represents a legal form of business present throughout the world and throughout the economy, namely in agriculture, finance, general consumption, and industrial production, albeit on a smaller scale. According to the Cooperative Alliance (ICA), the definition is clear. The objectives of this business model are to increase member participation and governance to a new level; position community energy as sustainability builders, build the community energy message and ensure community identity, ensure legal structures to support community growth and secure reliable community capital, ensure member control. It is often argued that laws and regulations raise various restrictions on REC. Therefore, renewable energy development should be supported by public policy, in all European countries. The development of REC’s does not appear to be the same in all member states. Moreover, its development even seems to be different, and depending on the European country. In Southern European countries, which do not have a tradition of green energy dissemination, show a lower development of REC’s. So, through a questionnaire addressed to participants in REC’s and a questionnaire addressed to the general population, it is intended to study and better understand what citizens' energy initiatives are, their main characteristics, benefits, barriers, and the motivations of individuals who participate in them. Citizen participation is a crucial point for the development of communities. The main motivation for participation seems to be concern about environmental and climate impacts. We also observe that, in these communities, trust is pointed out as important for the development of any RE project. As for the benefits, the results lead to significant insights: firstly, it is mentioned by the survey participants that the environmental benefits outweigh the financial ones when creating and developing REC’s. Secondly, it is significant to highlight that the benefits and impacts that RECs bring to the regions where they are created are perceived as essential. On the barriers, environmental policies and costs are among the barriers that are most pointed out to the adoption and development of REC’s. Finally, it has been shown that there is a disparity between the countries of Southern Europe and those of Northern Europe, this difference being justified by economic and environmental factors and the legislative framework. In short, REC’s are significant for the energy transition and should be supported by European governments and by national and European policies.
As tendências ambientais e económicas das últimas décadas forçaram o mundo a repensar urgentemente os mercados energéticos atuais e a oferta de energia. Assim, um estudo mais aprofundado sobre a Comunidades de Energia Renováveis (CER) é uma preocupação recente e emergente devido ao seu papel relevante em alguns mercados energéticos e, em alguns casos, pelo seu papel-chave no futuro. Esta nova geração de intervenção cidadã apresenta-se como uma forma de democratizar o sector energético em todas as suas fases, desde a produção até ao abastecimento. A energia comunitária representa uma forma jurídica de negócio presente em todo o mundo e em toda a economia, nomeadamente na agricultura, nas finanças, no consumo geral, e na produção industrial, ainda que em menor escala. De acordo com a Aliança Cooperativa (ICA), a definição é clara. Os objetivos deste modelo empresarial são o aumento da participação dos seus membros e a governação para um novo nível; posicionar a energia comunitária como construtores de sustentabilidade, construir a mensagem energética comunitária e assegurar a identidade comunitária, assegurar estruturas legais para apoiar o crescimento da comunidade e garantir capital comunitário fiável, assegurar o controlo dos membros. Argumenta-se frequentemente que as leis e regulamentos levantam várias restrições à CER. Por conseguinte, o desenvolvimento das energias renováveis deve ser apoiado por políticas públicas, em todos os países europeus. O desenvolvimento das CER não aparenta ser o mesmo em todos os estados-membros. Além disso, o seu desenvolvimento parece mesmo ser diferente, e dependendo do país europeu. Nos países do sul da Europa, que não têm uma tradição de disseminação de energia verde, mostram um desenvolvimento inferior de CER. Então através de um questionário dirigido aos participantes nas CER e um questionário dirigido à população em geral, pretende-se estudar e compreender melhor quais são as iniciativas energéticas dos cidadãos, as suas principais características, benefícios, barreiras e as motivações dos indivíduos que nelas participam. A participação dos cidadãos é um ponto crucial para o desenvolvimento das comunidades. A principal motivação para a participação parece ser a preocupação com os impactos ambientais e climáticos. Observamos também que, nestas comunidades, a confiança é apontada como importante para o desenvolvimento de qualquer projeto RE. Quanto aos benefícios, os resultados conduzem a importantes perceções: em primeiro lugar, é mencionado, pelos participantes no survey, que os benefícios ambientais superam os financeiros ao criar e desenvolver CER's. Em segundo lugar, é importante destacar que os benefícios e impactos que as CER trazem para as regiões onde são criadas são percecionados como essenciais. Sobre as barreiras, as políticas ambientais e os custos são das barreiras que mais são apontadas à adoção e ao desenvolvimento das CER. Finalmente, mostrou-se a existência de uma disparidade entre os países do sul da Europa e os do norte da Europa, justificando-se essa diferença por fatores económicos, ambientais e pelo quadro legislativo. Em suma, as CER mostram-se importantes para a transição energética, devendo ser apoiada pelos governos europeus e pelas políticas nacionais e europeias.
Programa Doutoral em Ciências Económicas e Empresariais

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Cook, Dana. "A powerful landscape: first nations small-scale renewable energy development in British Columbia." Thesis, 2019. https://dspace.library.uvic.ca//handle/1828/10586.

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Action on climate change will require an increase in renewable energy projects to support electrification in the transition away from burning fossil fuels. Indigenous peoples throughout Canada are developing community-owned small-scale (producing less than one megawatt of power) renewable energy projects and are interested in developing more. Despite Indigenous peoples’ involvement and interest, there is a lack of research into the impact of these projects for communities. This thesis explores whether and how small-scale renewable energy projects developed by First Nations communities in British Columbia (BC) might contribute to supporting justice within the energy transition. The research included a province-wide survey (First Nations Clean Energy Survey), and a case study with a remote First Nation with multiple small-scale renewable energy projects in operation—the Village of Skidegate on Haida Gwaii. This research found that small-scale projects are a distinct experience within the renewable energy sector, one that is offering First Nations communities an accessible form of power production that provides myriad benefits. Some benefits were easy to measure, such as cost savings and greenhouse gas reductions, while the majority of benefits were not as easy to quantify, such as increasing connection and engagement with energy, increasing self-sufficiency, providing a vision of a future free of oil and gas reliance, community pride and education. As these benefits indicate, the thesis concludes that small-scale renewable energy developments offer a distinctive and important opportunity that First Nations are using to enforce self-determination and build community resilience.
Graduate

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Barton, David. "Social and technical aspects of community level decision-making on energy options in two remote island communities." Phd thesis, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/151035.

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Ihbal, Abdel-Baset M. I., Haile S. Rajamani, Raed A. Abd-Alhameed, Mohamed K. Jalboub, A. S. Elmeshregi, and M. A. Aljaddal. "Development of Electricity Pricing Criteria at Residential Community Level." 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/8302.

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Yes
In the UK there is no real time retail market, and hence no real time retail electricity pricing. Therefore domestic electricity consumers in the UK pay electricity prices that do not vary from hour to hour, but are rather some kind of average price. Real time pricing information was identified as a barrier to understanding the effectiveness of various incentives and interventions. The key question is whether we can evaluate energy management and renewable energy intervention in the behaviour of customers in real market terms. Currently only behaviour changes with respect to total consumption can be evaluated. Interventions cannot be defined for peak load behaviour. The effectiveness of the introduction of renewable energy is also hard to assess. Therefore, it is hard to justify introducing of renewable and demand side management at local community level, apart from when following government approved schemes, subsidies, and other initiatives. In this paper, a new criteria has been developed to help developers and planners of local residential communities to understand the cost of intervention, in order to evaluate where the load is when the prices are high.

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Sherk, Theodore. "Residential Solar Energy Adoption in a Community Context: Perceptions and Characteristics of Potential Adopters in a West Toronto Neighbourhood." Thesis, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10012/6528.

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In the summer of 2007, a single neighbourhood in downtown Toronto contributed at least 13 percent of all residential grid???tie solar photovoltaic (PV) systems sold in the Canadian province of Ontario. On average, PV purchaser households produced 37 percent as much electricity as they consumed. This research investigates solar energy adoption in a community case study. Specifically, it investigates why some residents who sign up for a solar resource assessment through a community solar energy initiative (CSEI) decide to purchase, and others decide not to purchase in the short???term. Characteristics and perceptions of potential adopters are analyzed to better understand their motivations and barriers to adoption. Community energy projects became an official public policy goal in Ontario, with the passing of the Green Energy and Green Economy Act in 2009. Approximately 80 percent of Ontario???s anticipated generation capacity will need to be built, replaced or refurbished within 15 years. In this context, the Ontario Ministry of Energy, Ontario Power Authority, and Deloitte (one of Canada???s leading professional services firms), have partnered with a ???green benefit??? fund, the Community Power Fund, to help local community groups access resources to develop and establish renewable energy projects. Understanding solar energy adoption in a community context is therefore important to improve the effectiveness of such policies, including the disbursement of multi???million dollar grant funds. Differences between purchasers and non???purchasers in respect of adoption behaviour were found in this study to cluster around two general themes. The first theme concerns differences in compatibility of both the concept of solar energy systems, and their physical attributes, with characteristics of potential adopter households. Some compatibility issues are straightforward, e.g. availability of roof space with a southern orientation. Others are more complex, involving several interrelated perceptual and socio???demographic factors. For instance, while both purchasers and non???purchasers rated cost as a very important barrier, purchasers rated the motivation of solar energy systems to reduce climate change higher relative to the barrier of high financial costs than did non???purchasers. Purchasers were also more likely to possess a graduate degree, while non???purchasers were more likely to hold a professional degree. The second general theme relates to potential adopters??? trust and stake in the ability of the community???based initiative to reduce barriers in the adoption process. Since two types of solar energy systems are considered in the case study???PV and thermal (hot water)???differences are explored between each of three respondent groups: solar PV purchasers, solar hot water (SHW) purchasers, and non???purchasers. iv Surveys were used to gather data on adopter perceptions and characteristics. A participatory research design helped identify the research topic. Two main bodies of literature???community???based social marketing (CBSM) and diffusion of innovations theory???were drawn upon to conceptualize the adoption process and interpret the survey findings. These include five models of human behaviour that can be used to guide the design of CBSM campaigns. Diffusion theory was used as a basis for discussing ???perceived innovation attributes???. The study takes an integrated approach by considering both social and technical aspects of solar energy adoption, together with the issues of fuel substitution and household electricity demand.

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Ranzanici, Andrea. "Sustainability Comparison between EnDev and not-EnDev Micro-Hydro Power (MHP) in Indonesia : Analysis of the long-term technical, social, environmental and economic sustainability of the rural energy infrastructure of MHP in Indonesia." Thesis, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-129289.

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The Energising Development (EnDev) initiative, for which the GIZ acts as implementing agency, promotes the supply of modern energy technologies to households and small‐scale businesses in the rural communities of 24 countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. In Indonesia, this has been achieved through off‐grid micro‐hydro (MHP) and solar power mini‐grids and since 2006 230 MHP and 117 solar projects have been supported to varying degree at substantial cost, reaching more than 167 thousand people. The objective of this study is to assess this contribution of the EnDev-Indonesia initiative regarding the MHP performance and ultimate long‐term sustainability prospect of the rural energy infrastructure in the country. As such a comparison between EnDev and non-EnDev MHP projects in the country was undertaken and based on the established Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) survey methodology and the DB&TO sustainability model specifically fashioned for the purpose of this study. This approach involved on‐site visits and comprises technical, social, economic and environmental aspects. As a result, the analysis has shown important differences among the different supporting schemes, with the second implementing phase (2009‐2012) of EnDev outranking the other systems largely due to the high level of technical sustainability achieved by these sites. Such a good performance is even more surprising considering that the EnDev1 sites implemented during the first phase of the program in the early years were among the least‐sustainable investigated in this study. However, despite the high costs necessary to reach such a high level of sustainability as regards the quality of the civil works and electro‐mechanical equipments, this aspect alone was found not enough to guarantee the long‐term sustainability of MHP in Indonesia. On the other hand, lack of social and economic sustainability appeared having fatal consequences onthe operations of many plants. Therefore, such complex interrelation among the different aspects of sustainability was investigated and also external factors, like the regional and cultural differences among the different beneficiaries, were addressed. Finally, recommendations for future eventual courses of action were proposed.

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Gliedt, Travis. "Green Decision Making by Organizations: Understanding Strategic Energy Choices." Thesis, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10012/6275.

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There is a growing need to better understand environmental decision making in the context of climate change and limited renewable resources. This dissertation deepens our understanding of such decision making by focusing on strategic green decisions, which can be defined as the individual and collaborative green decisions within or between organizations that help organizations improve their operating position, adapt to changes in their external institutional environments, and simultaneously generate environmental benefits. The particular focus is on decisions related to energy in the North American context. The research draws on and contributes to organizational theory with the aim of better understanding those factors that motivate and/or facilitate green decisions by organizations, especially social economy organizations—an area of only limited research to date. Two complementary empirical studies address the overarching research goal. The first study focuses on understanding the nature and extent of the association between organizational attributes and those factors that motivate and/or facilitate a green energy decision. Insights are based on a bi-national survey of 212 organizations that voluntarily began to purchase green electricity between 1999 and 2008. Findings indicate that important influences are similar across organizational types. Survey results highlight the importance of organizational culture and internal champions—both individually and in combination—in making the initial decision to purchase green electricity, despite its relatively higher price. These two factors, as well as strategic benefits, emerge as the dominant explanations for why organizations expand their green energy purchases. The relative importance and particular roles of these factors vary across organizational and decision types. The second empirical study extends our understanding of how organizations adapt to external changes while maintaining the capacity to innovate in order to address their core objectives. The focus is on the residential energy services market, and is based on 12 interviews with the executive directors of non-profit environmental service organizations (ESOs) that are part of a national network called Green Communities Canada. These organizations survived a funding shock by creating new services and diversifying funding sources with actions that collectively can be referred to as ‘green collaborative entrepreneurship’; collaborative because it was facilitated by strategic partnerships with businesses and local governments, as well as the cross-national social capital network connecting the ESOs. The important motivating factors of green collaborative entrepreneurship were the green values and objectives that drive these organizations. The facilitating factors of green collaborative entrepreneurship included human capital, social capital and strategic partnerships, which acted as dynamic capabilities because of their flexibility to help increase the level of entrepreneurship when necessary for organizational survival, and yet, scale-up and deliver core programs during stable funding periods. The dissertation provides important insights into broad questions related to green decisions, especially for organizations that are affected by political policy cycles. The findings highlight that organizations are able to be more environmentally sustainable while also improving their own strategic performance by making green decisions that either provide the capacity to adapt to exogenous change for survival, or to create endogenous change for competitive advantage. The research contributes to our understanding of societal transitions to sustainable development by highlighting two green decisions that are occurring in the social economy. The dissertation contributes to organizational theory and in particular the traditional corporate literature by including multiple organizational types. Sustainability researchers should focus on green decisions that both enhance organizational stability and ecological sustainability if they wish to better understand creative green solutions from organizations.

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Garlicki, Marek. "Lobbing polskich organizacji pozarządowych związanych z energetyką odnawialną w UE." Doctoral thesis, 2019. https://depotuw.ceon.pl/handle/item/3424.

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Przedmiotem rozprawy doktorskiej jest działalność lobbingowa prowadzona w Unii Europejskiej przez polskie organizacje pozarządowe związane z odnawialnymi źródłami energii (OZE). Należy jednak zastrzec, że przedmiot analizy został ograniczony do działalności sformalizowanej, ponieważ wszelkie działania lobbingowe o charakterze nieformalnym i poufnym są bardzo trudne do zbadania ze względu na bardzo ograniczoną możliwość dotarcia do danych empirycznych. Warto zwrócić też uwagę na fakt, że praca ma charakter wieloaspektowy, gdyż porusza kwestie lobbingu w Unii Europejskiej, zagadnienie polityki energetyczno-klimatycznej UE, czy też działalności organizacji pozarządowych. Celem pracy jest analiza wspomnianej działalności lobbingowej podejmowanej przez polskie organizacje pozarządowe związane z OZE w dwóch wymiarach. Pierwszy wymiar odnosi się do wpływu lobbingu wspomnianych organizacji na prawodawstwo w unijnej polityce energetyczno-klimatycznej. Natomiast drugim wymiarem jest wpływ na postrzeganie OZE przez społeczeństwo polskie. Główna hipoteza badawcza zakłada, że działania lobbingowe polskich organizacji pozarządowych związanych z OZE są skuteczne, ponieważ silnie oddziałują na wyznaczanie kierunków w unijnej polityce energetyczno-klimatycznej, a wśród obywateli polskich przeważają pozytywne postawy wobec energii ze źródeł odnawialnych. Struktura rozprawy obejmuje wstęp, pięć rozdziałów i zakończenie. Każdy z rozdziałów odpowiada na postawione pytania badawcze mające przybliżyć do weryfikacji hipotezy. Pierwszy rozdział definiuje odnawialne źródła energii oraz przybliża politykę energetyczno-klimatyczną UE i opisuje proces jej kształtowania. Rozdział drugi koncentruje się na zdefiniowaniu polskich organizacji pozarządowych związanych z energetyką odnawialną i ich roli jako podmiotu lobbingu w UE. W trzecim rozdziale przedstawione zostały strategie lobbingowe oraz metody i instrumenty stosowane w kontekście dwóch badanych obszarów wpływu, czyli prawodawstwa unijnego i polskiej opinii publicznej. W celu weryfikacji zmiennej niezależnej odnoszącej się do postaw społeczeństwa polskiego, przeprowadzono ilościowe badanie empiryczne na reprezentatywnej próbie dorosłych Polaków. Analiza danych pozyskanych w toku badania została przedstawiona w rozdziale czwartym. Z kolei rozdział piąty został podzielony na dwie części odpowiadające weryfikacji dwóch zmiennych niezależnych. W pierwszej części, przy wykorzystaniu analizy sieci, odtwarzane są kanały wpływu polskich organizacji pozarządowych związanych z OZE na instytucje unijne. W drugiej autor interpretuje wyniki badania empirycznego w celu zbadania poziomu skuteczności wpływu z tej perspektywy. W toku analiz hipoteza badawcza została zweryfikowana pozytywnie. W przypadku pierwszej zmiennej niezależnej, na podstawie odtworzonych kanałów wpływu i zmian zachodzących w prawodawstwie unijnym wyciągnięto wniosek, że lobbing polskich organizacji pozarządowych związanych z OZE jest skuteczne. Niemniej jednak zauważono pewne różnice pomiędzy badanymi organizacjami. Z analizy sieci wynika, iż większą skuteczność mają organizacje ekologiczne i ich koalicje niż organizacje reprezentujące firmy z branży OZE. Druga zmienna niezależna również została zweryfikowana pozytywnie, ponieważ empiryczne badanie ilościowe wyraźnie wykazało, że w społeczeństwie polskim dominują: silne poparcie energetyki odnawialnej i pozytywne przekonania na jej temat.
The subject of the doctoral dissertation focuses on lobbying activities in the European Union conducted by Polish non-governmental organizations related to renewable energy sources (RES). However, it should be stipulated that the subject of the analysis has been limited to formal activities because all informal and confidential lobbying activities are very difficult to investigate due to the very limited possibility of acquiring empirical data. It is also worth noting that the dissertation has multi-faceted character, as it raises different issues: the issue of lobbying in the European Union, the issue of EU energy and climate policy, or the issue of activities of non-governmental organizations. The aim of the dissertation is to analyze lobbying activities undertaken by Polish NGOs related to RES in two following dimensions. The first one refers to the impact of lobbying of these NGOs on legislation in the area of energy and climate policy in the EU. The second one refers to the influence on Polish society’s perception of RES. The research hypothesis assumes that lobbying activities of Polish NGOs related to RES are effective because they strongly influence the directions of EU energy and climate policy, and positive attitudes towards energy from renewable sources prevail among Polish citizens. The structure of the dissertation includes an introduction, five chapters and summary. Each chapter aims to bring to the verification of the hypothesis. The first chapter defines renewable energy sources and describes the EU energy and climate policy and the process of its shaping. The second chapter focuses on defining Polish NGOs related to renewable energy and their role as a lobbying entity in the EU. The third chapter presents lobbying strategies as well as methods and instruments used in the context of two areas of influence – namely EU legislation and Polish public opinion. In order to verify the independent variable regarding the attitudes of Polish society, a quantitative empirical study (survey) was conducted on a representative sample of adult Polish citizens. The analysis of data obtained during the survey is presented in the fourth chapter. Finally, the fifth chapter has been divided into two parts corresponding to the verification of two independent variables. In the first part, by means of the network analysis, the author recreated the channels of influence of Polish NGOs related to RES on the EU institutions. In the second part, the results of a conducted survey are interpreted in order to measure the level of effectiveness of impact from this perspective. In the course of analysis, the research hypothesis has been verified positively. In case of the first independent variable, the author, by means of recreated channels of influence, came to the conclusions that lobbying activities of Polish NGOs related to RES is effective. Nevertheless, some differences were noted between the analyzed organizations. The network analysis shows that environmental NGOs and their coalitions have bigger impact than NGOs representing companies from RES industry. The second independent variable has also been verified positively. It is concluded by the fact that the survey clearly showed that strong support of RES and positive beliefs about it are prevailing in Polish society.

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49

Miller, Gwen M. "Wind Power, Public Power: Evaluating Public Participation in New England Land-based Wind Development." 2013. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/1068.

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Wind energy is a means of energy production without carbon emissions, facilitating regional and national energy security. While there are currently no offshore wind farms in the United States, there has been growing success in building land-based wind capacity. Within the wind industry, there is a call for a streamlined permitting process, as well as an objective evaluation of current stakeholder processes. Within city and regional planning, the stakeholder process and public participation in general have long been subject to research and discourse, as scholars and practitioners alike seek to identify and typify what exactly makes public participation robust or rigorous. In Europe, researchers have found that a stakeholder process characterized by early inclusion and local decision-making increases community acceptance of large-scale wind projects, and that a ‘soft-path’, decentralized approach to infrastructure development, as seen in Germany, leads to greater community acceptance as well, versus the ‘hard-path’, centralized approach to infrastructure development as typified in early Dutch wind development. While the public process should not supplant the formal permitting process, or detract from technical expertise, a better understanding of what type of siting and decision-making process are construed by participants as positive or negative could help to formulate stakeholder involvement more effectively in future projects. It could also help to decrease the length of permitting times by promoting consensus-building rather than inadvertently creating an adversarial decision-making climate. This thesis uses a case study methodology to compare three land-based wind farms in Massachusetts and Vermont. It also compares the wind development policies between the two states. From each site, stakeholders are identified and interviewed concerning their experiences and perspectives of the stakeholder or public process. Interviews are analyzed using a matrix composed of success criteria pulled from the fields of regional planning and public participation theory, collaborative planning, and adaptive resource management. Findings include evidence as to what degree there was a stakeholder process, and to what degree participants found it positive or negative. The research found that the characteristics and practices of ore robust or rigorous stakeholder engagement are largely lacking in New England land-based wind development. These characteristics or practices included third-party data collection and reporting; early and broad stakeholder inclusion; collaborative ground rule setting; and no third-party mediation or facilitation. Stakeholder process perspectives are easily divided by wind-energy attitudes: anti-wind stakeholders reported greater antipathy toward the process, whereas proponents of both specific projects and the technology in general reported greater favorability toward the process and outcome. Vermont and Massachusetts have distinct wind development processes and distinct mechanisms for public participation and stakeholder engagement in a renewable energy technology context. In many ways, the siting of renewable infrastructure still follows the ‘decide, announce, defend’ character of conventional infrastructure and facility siting. Wind proponents, and proponents of other renewable energy technologies and sustainability measures in general, should pause and consider how to craft meaningful, robust and rigorous stakeholder processes prior to site selection and development. This will lend legitimacy to both the process and technology, lending political and social sustainability to a technology that is well needed for social, economic and environmental well-being. Continued avoidance of early and robust stakeholder engagement may contribute to ongoing conflict and confusion regarding renewable energy siting, permitting and development. Stakeholder experiences and perspectives also demonstrated that there are many factors contributing to public and social perceptions of wind technology and specific projects, including the financial gain or reward to communities and stakeholders; the size of individual turbines; project ownership and management; and project scale. There is opportunity for enhancing the public process and allowing rigorous and robust stakeholder process in wind energy development.

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Sibisi, Ncamisile Teressa. "Evaluation of the acceptability, impact and feasibility of biogas digesters in rural Maphephetheni, KwaZulu-Natal." Thesis, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/6249.

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Biogas has the potential to provide energy to communities, especially those where grid electrification will not be installed for a long time and who experience problems in accessing energy resources. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether biogas technology could provide households and a school with an acceptable, affordable, efficient, and sustainable alternative energy resource, thereby providing opportunities for cost savings, reduction of the labour burden and income generation. Three case studies were selected, two households and Myeka High School in rural Maphephetheni. Maphephetheni is situated approximately 80 km west of Durban and is characterised by the lack of grid electrification. The two households selected as case studies were both using firewood and paraffin for thermal energy. Collection of firewood was a tiresome burden to women and paraffin was expensive to purchase. The third case study, Myeka High School was using solar energy and LP gas to support its energy needs. Biogas digesters were donated to the two households and the school. Data before and after installation of biogas was collected through questionnaires, informal interviews and observations. Monitoring and evaluation of the case studies was carried out. Results collected revealed that biogas was an acceptable source of energy because the household and school equipped with the floating dome biogas digesters accepted cooking on biogas while the household used the fertiliser from biogas on their crops. However it was not affordable both to the household and the school because in the household income did not allow for its purchase while savings on energy expenditure from both the school and household could not offset the cost in the six years estimated by the engineer but it would take 11 years. Biogas was found to be efficient and sustainable provided proper management was available. Although income generation opportunities were not fully utilised, there was an opportunity for income generation through the biogas provided there was encouragement, support and markets available. Recommendations are that government policy should provide for training of stakeholders on proper management techniques. Government or organisations involved with biogas energy could do this, as well as provide an extension service for the dissemination of biogas and other renewable energy information. However, government policy should as in other countries provide for subsidies, risk underwritten bank loans or tax incentives to manufacturers.
Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Community renewable energy groups'

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