Capabilities-led energy Poverty Alleviation via innovative community Solutions (CaPAS)
Project Overview
Scalable participatory methodology for reducing energy poverty in rural communities, by implementing appropriate eco-technologies to households.
What problem was the project designed to solve?
Household energy injustices (a.k.a. Energy poverty), for rural families in 4 regions of Mexico.
What did the project do and who was involved? How were you involved?
Our research had four objectives:
- Identify and characterise areas with the most severe cases of energy poverty by advancing a Multidimensional Energy Poverty Index from a capabilities perspective
- Generate inclusive knowledge of the socio-cultural contexts, via participatory workshops with stakeholders with different forms of knowledge, to close existing gaps and understand the real energy needs of rural communities
- Identify and validate the most effective and replicable technological solutions to tackle rural energy poverty
- Develop a transferable and adaptable technology toolkit to promote and empower replication of successful mechanisms in other rural areas.
It was a joint collaboration between University of Glasgow and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Dr. Harriet Thomson was UK leader and I was the Mexican leader of this Newton Fund-Conacyt initiative.
Head of Department – Strategic Innovation, Instituto de Energías Renovables, UNAM
What was the outcome?
The 24 households in four diverse Mexican regions not only alleviated their situation of energy poverty, but most importantly, knowledge transfer was effective and energy behaviours at the household level were transformed, including in their known views around energy, all the voices in the household (children, women, elderly).
What challenges did you address and how were they addressed?
The first one, COVID. The project was designed and approved in 2019, so facing lockdown transformed all interventions from highly in person to mostly remote (by WhatsApp and few visits). In addition, households were selected by community trust contacts, so the diversity of cases was huge, including disabled people and even multifamily households. Finally, several households had irregular connections to the power grid, and the socio-technical challenges around that situation were quite sensible.