Developing socially and economically generative, resilient PV-energy systems for low- and moderate-income communities: Applications for Puerto Rico (Final Technical Report)

Technical Report · Fri Sep 27 04:00:00 EDT 2024

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2448079· OSTI ID:2448079

Miller, Clark A. ^[1]

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1. Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States); Arizona State University

The nexus of energy and poverty is one of the most significant long-term challenges facing the energy and electricity sectors, with negative feedback loops between energy-related costs, risks, and insecurities, on the one hand, and diverse other social and economic insecurities, on the other, helping to undermine health, wellbeing, and resilience in low- and moderate-income communities around the US and the world (Biswas et al. 2022). The transition of energy systems to clean energy alternatives offers a potential opportunity to redesign future energy arrangements in ways that, instead, create beneficial social value for communities, reverses the energy-poverty nexus, and enhances community wellbeing (Biswas et al. 2020; Miller et al. 2018). The promise of clean energy transitions to address the energy-poverty nexus is especially significant when designed using principles of just energy transitions. To leverage just clean energy transitions to accomplish a reversal of the energy-poverty nexus requires improvement in three capabilities: (1) Understanding and mapping the community-scale dynamics and variability of the energy-poverty nexus, which vary considerably from community to community; (2) Evaluating the technical, social, and economic potential for different clean energy system designs to deliver social value to specific communities; and (3) Working collaboratively with communities to imagine and design clean energy systems solutions that meet their needs, fit their capabilities and contexts, and deliver multiple forms of community-desired social value/benefits that help reverse key facets of the energy-poverty nexus. This project developed a portfolio of novel tools, methodological approaches, and collaborative partnerships with four communities in Puerto Rico that further the objective of building these three capabilities.

• Research Organization: Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
• DOE Contract Number: EE0008570
• OSTI ID: 2448079
• Report Number(s): DOE-ASU--EE0008570-1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
community engagement
distributed solar
energy poverty
sociotechnical imaginaries