Bøger af Vanesa Castan Broto

This open access book engages with the difficulties of delivering community energy in practice, building on practical experiences in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Mozambique. Community energy refers to infrastructure and institutional arrangements whereby communities take control and ownership of the provision of energy services and enable the development of renewable, off-grid energy infrastructures. While the size and technologies used vary, community energy incorporates the perspectives of beneficiaries on electricity generation and distribution through collaborative mechanisms for decision-making. The combination of off-grid infrastructures with community governance has enabled the delivery of community energy systems, which can provide additional capacity to existing grids, provide off-grid services where the grid is absent, and bridge on-grid and off-grid systems. Community energy joins social development objectives (e.g., access to energy, energy justice) with sustainability ones (e.g., reduction of carbon emissions) in practical attempts to reimagine and put into practice sustainable energy futures. These countries face a substantial gap in access rates to electricity. Community energy has become an important response to advance universal energy access. Yet, this book argues that community energy must also be understood beyond providing energy access as a wider tool for achieving resilience and justice across the energy system. The book presents a feminist-informed perspective on community energy to advance energy justice, puts disadvantaged communities at the center of the transition, and explores what room for maneuver exists within existing regulatory systems, supply chains, and systems of delivery. The book also places particular emphasis on education and the need to develop energy literacy across policymakers, technicians, and communities.

An assessment of sustainability initiatives in over 200 cities offering a practical approach to just sustainability as a framework for urban development

The urban energy transition represents a transformation of such magnitude that it will require a re-examination of the fundamental relationship between societies and energy resources. The potential for cities to deliver sustainable energy for their citizens requires context-specific action. One-size-fits-all approaches - which assume homogeneity across cities and economies of scale in the extension of electricity networks - have largely failed to deliver sustainable energy for all. This challenge is existential, questioning the fundamental ways in which contemporary life is organized around energy. This innovative volume argues that the urban energy transition depends on specific urban trajectories and heterogeneous urban energy landscapes, reflecting both strategic projects of urbanization and people's dwelling practices. Looking at in-depth case studies of urban energy landscapes in four major cities, it calls for citizens' active engagement with experimentation in everyday life. The book will have wide interdisciplinary appeal to researchers in energy, urban and environmental studies.