Book Description

This book was written to meet the needs of community organisations, development activists and the new breed of energy professional who wants to address the growing problems associates with Sustainable Energy systems.Planning for Sustainable Energy will be a major force for development in the 21st century and there is a need for guides to best practice for those who make decision, or who work with decision makers.The role of Sustainable Energy specialists and planners is to contribute to the sustainable management of energy systems and services, develop appropriate policies and assure the availability of energy services. Without the support of community organisations little substantive or sustainable progress can be made.Many problems can be classified as energy problems. The challenge for Sustainable Energy practitioners is to cope with conflicting priorities for improving the energy systems, which serve communities.As the scope of the Sustainable Energy challenge broadens, it becomes almost impossible for one individual to have a complete grasp of the knowledge and skills needed to identify, analyse and address the problems effectively. Sustainable Energy practitioners therefore need to have a broad range of skills and some specialist knowledge, particularly knowing how to find and evaluate sources of knowledge.It is not intended that this handbook be considered the last word in the field of Sustainable Energy planning, rather it should be considered the first words and most important basic concepts and principles which make up the essential activities associated with Sustainable Energy planning and implementation.The book is structured around a formal decision-making and planning process which is sufficiently adaptable to cope with most circumstances. It guides the reader from the initial stages of thinking about the current situation to the process of identifying problems that need to be addressed and the opportunities that can be created when appropriate action is taken. Appropriate models are then made of the current situation and of the interventions necessary to arrive at the new situation, which allows different scenarios to be examined. Once appropriate information has been collected and analysed and interpreted, using as many stakeholder viewpoints as possible then decisions can be made and these decisions put into practice.In later chapters the setting up of appropriate community based organisations are examined and some of the problems which can occur when trying to involve communities in renewable energy projects are highlighted.