Community energy and sustainable energy transitions in Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique (CESET)

《2019年能源进展报告》显示，有必要加紧努力，将并网和离网战略联系起来，以促进电力获取（EIA等，2019年）。根据这份报告，电力供应缺口最大的20个国家中有8个在东非，包括埃塞俄比亚、马拉维和莫桑比克。在能源获取方面存在巨大差距的国家，迅速采用可再生能源可能有助于可持续地获得能源。东非国家越来越多的可再生能源技术表明，这种转变是可能的。然而，仅靠技术并不能解决能源获取的挑战。向可持续能源的过渡需要优先考虑被排斥和处境不利群体的社会需求。满足人们的能源需求需要将社会效益置于利润之上的制度、组织和金融能源交付模式。已经开发出新的能源输送模式，使社区参与离网系统的设计和管理。虽然所使用的规模和技术各不相同，但所有社区能源系统（以下简称社区能源系统）都通过协作决策机制纳入了受益者对发电和配电的看法。CESs可以为现有电网提供额外的容量，在没有电网的地方提供离网服务，并在入网和离网系统之间架起桥梁。CESET项目汇集了来自政治学、人文地理学、工程学和技术提供商的研究人员，以了解CESs在推进公正的可持续能源转型方面的作用，这将弥合东非的能源获取差距。我们的重点是埃塞俄比亚、马拉维和莫桑比克，这三个国家的当地人对CESs有着相当大的热情。CESs的支持者认为，它们可以促进面临巨大电力赤字的国家进行深层次的结构转型。首先，通过将所有权交给社区，CESs挑战了能源的政治经济学，并揭示了与能源相关的不平等。其次，通过展示服务提供的新模式，CESs可以使能源供应的制度格局多样化。第三，通过在能源服务的设计和管理中纳入处境较不利的人口的关切，可持续发展体系可以直接响应他们的需要，并产生适合这些需要的创新。由于缺乏关于可持续发展能源系统以及更普遍的能源系统的数据，几乎没有证据表明可持续发展能源如何在实践中发挥作用及其在东非的影响。有必要更新政策和做法。研究和干预措施往往依赖于技术蓝图，而这些蓝图不适合可持续发展的体制和物质条件。此外，将社区概念化为和谐、同质的单位，掩盖了影响能源获取和基础设施管理的多种形式的排斥。国际上已经达成共识，需要分类数据来了解能源获取方面的性别差距。CESET提倡超越，考虑性别与多种社会特征的交集，这些特征也可能导致被排除在能源服务之外（如年龄、性取向、种族、原籍地）。CESET将产生三个成果来应对这一挑战。CESET的理论框架将认识到CESs模型的多样性，以及它们如何与社区多样性的多个变量相互作用。CESET还将从地方、国家和区域三个层面描述东非国家经济和社会发展的运作情况。随着莫桑比克社区能源实验室的启动，将有进一步的学习，以收集实践中有效的证据。CESET的努力将导致建立一个区域能源学习联盟，以提供一个长期研究方案，并支持东非关于CESET的跨部门学习。

The 2019 Energy Progress Report shows the need to step up efforts to link on-grid and off-grid strategies to facilitate access to electricity (EIA et al, 2019). According to the report, eight of the twenty countries with the largest deficits in access to electricity are in East Africa, including Ethiopia, Malawi, and Mozambique. In countries facing such significant gaps in energy access, the rapid adoption of renewable energy may help to deliver access to energy sustainably. The growing availability of renewable technologies in East Africa's countries suggests that such a transition is possible. However, technology alone will not solve the challenge of energy access. A transition to sustainable energy needs to prioritise the social needs of excluded and disadvantaged groups. Responding to people's energy needs requires institutional, organisational, and financial models of energy delivery that prioritise social benefits over profits. New models of energy delivery have been developed to involve communities in the design and management of off-grid systems. While the size and technologies used vary, all Community Energy Systems (henceforth CESs) incorporate the perspectives of beneficiaries on electricity generation and distribution through collaborative mechanisms for decision-making. CESs can provide additional capacity to existing grids, provide off-grid services where the grid is absent, and bridge on-grid and off-grid systems. The project CESET brings together researchers from political science, human geography, engineering and technology providers to understand the role of CESs in advancing a just sustainable energy transition that will bridge the energy access gap in East Africa. Our focus is in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Mozambique, three countries where there is considerable local enthusiasm about CESs. Proponents of CESs argue that they can foster deep structural transformations in countries facing large electricity deficits. First, by giving ownership to communities, CESs challenge the political economy of energy and reveal energy-related inequalities. Second, by demonstrating new modes of service provision, CESs can diversify the institutional landscape of energy delivery. Third, by incorporating the concerns of the more disadvantaged populations in the design and management of energy services, CESs can respond to their needs directly and generate innovations tailored to those needs.There is little evidence of how CESs work in practice and their impacts in East Africa because of the shortage of data on CESs, and energy systems more generally. There is a need to renew policy and practice. Research and interventions often rely on technological blueprints that do not fit the institutional and material conditions in which CESs operate. Moreover, conceptualisations of communities as harmonious, homogenous units obscure the multiple forms of exclusion that influence energy access and infrastructure management. There is already an international consensus about the need for disaggregated data to understand the gender gap in energy access. CESET advocates going beyond by considering the intersection of gender with multiple social characteristics that may also lead to exclusion from energy services (such as age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, place of origin). CESET will produce three outcomes to address this challenge. CESET's theoretical framework will recognise the variety of CESs models and how they interact with multiple variables of community diversity. CESET will also characterise the landscape of operation of CESs in East Africa at three scales: local, national, and regional. Further learning will happen with the activation of a Community Energy Lab in Mozambique to compile evidence of what works in practice. CESET's efforts will lead to the creation of a Regional Energy Learning Alliance to deliver a long-term research programme and support trans-sectorial learning on CESs in East Africa.