GCR: Convergence for Innovative Energy Solutions: Empowering Off-Grid Communities with Sustainable Energy Technologies

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This GCR project brings together a team of experts in communication studies, social sciences and engineering working with stakeholders in a new form of engagement to jointly design and implement sustainable energy technologies. The goal is to deliver transformative advances in science and technology to communities where energy is too expensive or unreliable. This is a major challenge particularly in communities in that are off-the-grid. A crucial factor for innovation adoption is compatibility of the technology with the values, beliefs, and past experiences of people in that social system. The focus of this project will be on a new technological solution, employing in-stream turbines without dams, that permit fish and vessels to move freely, allow fishers to maintain their livelihoods, and eliminate the need for resettlement. The project includes the training of students in convergence research and the production of an audiovisual record for further analysis and use in teaching. A new graduate course on how to go about building convergence, interacting, and co-designing new technology to meet the needs of specific communities will be developed as part of a dual PhD program for engineering, social science and natural science students.This team of researchers will produce a prototype in-stream turbine through a convergent dialogue between scientists and stakeholders in communities that need sustainable and affordable forms of energy. Creating this convergence model requires that scholars from engineering, communication studies and social sciences work together to discover what modifications in the engineering may be necessary for these solutions to gain social acceptance. To that end, the researchers will work in a convergent manner to ensure that innovative off-the-grid energy solutions are right-sized, embraced by, and sustainable for those communities. This work will build on the literature on diffusion of innovations, the process by which information about a new idea is communicated through various channels among members of a social system through convergence processes to advance knowledge. The researchers will determine the extent to which various communication processes operate to influence social acceptance of a technological innovation that empowers local communities. They will then introduce a prototype and work with communities to enhance the characteristics of the technology to further adapt it to community energy needs. Beyond energy solutions, this model can provide a template for other sectors interested in developing innovative solutions with sustained input from stakeholders.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.