Energy Transition on St Helena Island:A system dynamics approach

This paper uses a system dynamics approach to explore low carbon energy transition on St Helena (SH) Island, identifying dominant system behaviors and opportunities for sustainable development. The British overseas territory is geographically remote and electrically isolated, making it an interesting, well-bounded case study. SH government wants to transition to renewable energy but financing investment in new systems will be challenging as import costs are high and their economy is stagnant, not yet recovered from the effects of the pandemic. Affordable energy would have a big impact on local businesses and increase consumer spending, boosting the economy. Qualitative data is collected through semi-structured interviews with energy stakeholders that explore how the current energy provision impacts the island and possible effects of future development plans. Transcripts from these interviews are coded to extract causal relationships and synthesized to develop a causal loop diagram (CLD) of island energy behaviors. This model undergoes methodical simplification to identify dominant behaviors and explore how system behaviors can support energy transition in the interest of the whole island. In this case, it is observed that public planned energy systems are an opportunity for more positive impact on the whole island than private systems. Analysis also highlights how strongly consumer energy costs affect the rest of the system and thereby indicates which stakeholder groups need to be included in decision-making processes. In some areas where the polarity of behavioral links was disputed, a basic systems archetypes study demonstrates the importance of effective communication and transparent decision-making to prevent initiation of unfavorable dynamics. Authors hope the clearly demonstrated methods offer a useful example of how this approach can offer useful insights into complex system problems.<br/

A short overview of barriers to decarbonization : A Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental (PESTLE) perspective.

This paper offers a global oversight of the barriers facing decarbonization through a systemic literature review. The review uses the PESTLE Framework to identify barriers through a Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental lens based on literature relating to global governing bodies, existing industrial sectors, and individual nations. The results are collated and analyzed thematically. The review shows that political tensions commonly underlie other barriers such as technological and economic, which points to political barriers being the most significant. Two main themes are identified as being the root cause of many barriers: lack of constructive communication; and lack of systems planning

Capturing the value of community fuel poverty alleviation

This report summarises the findings of the ‘Capturing the value of community energy’ business collaboration project. Completed between September 2020 and January 2021, a team of researchers from University of Bristol (Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow Colin Nolden and PhD Researchers Daniela Rossade and Peter Thomas) analysed company data stretching back to 2015 from Energise Sussex Coast (ESC) and South East London Community Energy (SELCE), two non-profit social enterprises that seek to act co-operatively to tackle fuel poverty and the climate crisis. Both have won multiple awards for their work which includes community owned renewable energy schemes and tackling fuel poverty, which involves reaching out to vulnerable members of their communities to help them understand their energy bills, switch suppliers and reduce their energy demand. This business collaboration involved the analysis of their fuel poverty alleviation data to gain a better understanding of what fuel poverty advice and energy saving action works and what does not. We pursued a three-pronged approach to the data analysis. Firstly, we tried to establish comparability among the quantitative datasets to compare their approach, outreach and success in tackling fuel poverty. Secondly, we calculated the Social Return on Investment (SROI) using one specific dataset from 2018/19. Thirdly, we analysed the qualitative data to gain a deeper understanding of links between organisational approaches, fuel poverty alleviation interventions, data capture and management, and the funding environment. Due to complicated and highly variable reporting procedures it was only possible to establish comparable datasets on a few metrics which reflect requirements set by funders. The SROI calculation revealed that community fuel poverty alleviation efforts undertaken by companies such as SELCE and ESC has a SROI of 9-10:1 for every £1 invested. The qualitative analysis revealed the systematic underreporting of such value as funders’ targets are narrowly defined around numbers rather than genuinely lifting people out of fuel poverty. This report concludes with some recommendations to improve the operational environment for community fuel poverty alleviation services, especially given their invaluable efforts in reaching out to some of the most vulnerable members of our communities