by Sohail Inayatullah and Satya Tanner
Electrifying a Continent
Nine years ago, while working for a large African national energy supplier, participants imagined a unique future for the continent. In their vision, every village would use solar with artificial intelligence and peer-to-peer energy networks to create a decentralized grid. Each village would have a storage battery. The energy company would become the platform connecting and electrifying the continent. They would move from being engineers to platform designers. Africa could become energy abundant, they believed. Traditional forms of energy would still be there, as needed, for backup. However, when they looked at who they were – traditional engineers – they realized they did not have the experience or capability to design such a system. They needed to develop new capabilities. But all believed that that this future could be realized.
They asked if we could now run a similar process with the CEO, the Board, and stakeholders. I (Inayatullah) agreed. However, prior to the workshop commencing the CEO was indicted for corruption, it appears for accepting bribes for the national strategy to move toward nuclear energy.
The project was dropped.
It would not be until three years later that the first peer to peer energy network at the village level would be created. This was to be in Bangladesh (Peters, 2018). As rural Bangladesh was not tied into traditional energy systems, as with the landline phone system, they could leapfrog the current energy infrastructure (Sheraz, Inayatullah, and Ali, 2013).
The tension between traditional systems and novel systems is not just true for the South. In over twenty years of work in Australia, I have found similar concerns and a similar design for transformation. Having worked with dozens of utilities and private corporations, a clear theme has emerged. Energy retailers wish to move from merely “keeping the lights on” to “become the connectors.” As the system, irrespective of the politics of any national government, moves toward renewables, they wish to be front and center of the revolution. For them, the writing is on the wall: climate change, cheaper products, and a desire for citizens to make a measurable difference have moved renewable strategies from the dreams of the Nimbin/Woodstock generation to the core and key topic in every boardroom. Indeed, there are discussions that Australia should become a green energy superpower, or at the very least Queensland can lead the way given its proximity to Asia (State Government of Queensland, 2022) and ideal policy settings.
The question for energy providers is, as the market changes, who should they be in this new future? That said, not every provider believes the shift will occur. At one board meeting while they were ready to fund reports on the energy transition, they were far less willing to put their money where their mouth was and fund the innovation needed. In one meeting, when I queried why this was the case. They answered with transparency. “We really do not believe we will lose our energy monopoly,” the Board Chair asserted. Our metaphor is the large tanker, which is impossible to move. Large scale change was impossible, they argued. We thus shifted the narrative from the tanker to tugboats, with each boat becoming a fundable innovation. Some of these next steps included smart apps to monitor real time energy use in the household; solar energy farms; using sewage to power cars, and so forth. These smaller projects they could see, the larger shift was harder for them.
However, other companies are not interested in marginal change but because of rapidly changing markets, with creating the future.
Using Causal Layered Analysis, energy futures can be deconstructed and reconstructed from the present to the medium term (2033) to the longer term (2043). (Inayatullah, Mercer, Milojevic, Sweeney, 2023). This chart (Table 1) shows the shift i.e., moving from keeping the lights on to the energy connector to eventually, with full decentralization and personalization – the personalized energy experience/adventure. In each case, the narrative shifts as does the accompanying systemic strategy as well as the visible results.
Image of the future used with permission from Irene Durmisevic
The main challenge is to ensure the stability of the system – that the gains of decentralization are not lost due to lack of regulation – the system over time needs to centralize – in novel ways -and decentralize at the same time.[1] Citizens and retailers need government regulation to ensure reliability and safety.
Table 1: Energy Systems CLA by Sohail Inayatullah from work by participants at numerous workshops.
What was clear from this analysis is the system would change and consumers would gain agency in how they receive and not just use but create energy.
The Vision
At another state level meeting, while all the managers could see the shifts that they needed to embark on, it was not until the Chair of the board said: “make it so,” that the urgency and immediacy of the transition became apparent.
This group outlined the vision as such:
- We lead and enable net zero emissions – this further helps grow the state’s domestic product and the overall wealth of citizens.
- We have become an organization that is keen, eager, with a combined purpose and common view – it transforms into an energized company with energized and excited employees. The consequence is new graduates wish to join us.
- We enable more of what has become possible – e.g., not just new ways of providing renewables/batteries but becoming the solutions provider. Our core metaphor is we are the conductor in the new energy orchestra. We need to lead and ensure quality.
More specifically, they sought to become:
- A world-class renewables platform
- Highly partnered in the supply chain
- World class energy solutions
- Diversified products
- Saving the world and making this run
To 2050
Other international companies have gone further. They mapped their immediate concerns with trends and then emerging issues that would challenge the entire energy infrastructure. This figure using Graham Molitor’s Emerging issues analysis s-curve represents this shift (Molitor, 2004).
Figure 1: by participant at a course on Futures Thinking and Strategy Development. September 2017, Melbourne.
The current issue was that of a stable online platform. Trends to 2030 was the development of an uber of energy. The long term of the singularity is a fully AI energy system led and designed by AI (by 2050).
Another group imagined the energy genie. – providing personal energy solutions locally and globally.
The genie would provide:
- Real time energy information
- Real time energy forecasts
- Eventually providing energy for the customer, anytime and anywhere.
- They thus saw the future disruptions quite dramatic; indeed, even seeing the possibility of wireless energy.
Figure 2: by participants at a Futures Thinking and Strategy Development Course, Kuala Lumpur, 2018.
While tabletop fusion may change this landscape, in the medium term we are in the middle of an energy revolution. What is not clear is how regulation and governance can ensure energy output as we move toward decentralized renewable solutions.
That leads us to the present – right in the middle of an energy transition.
Australia as a Case Study: Winners and Losers ar Cooperating Parts?
In Australia we can see that current technologies have and are still outrunning the regulatory environment of the electricity market. The grid was designed with the philosophy of a top-down utility (such as a coal or gas power station) generating electricity, transmitting it through large power lines and delivering it to the home of the consumer. This top-down philosophy continues with renewable energy utilities, such as solar farms and wind farms, which have large production capacity and sell their power to the grid. Yet with decentralized rooftop solar in the mix, many households, who were typically consumers of electricity, have also become producers and sellers of electricity through roof solar systems. So much so that in the early days, attractive feed-in tariffs for selling their excess solar to the grid spurned a rapid uptake in solar technology.
Figure 3: About the National Electricity Market, AEMO (2017).
From my point of view (Tanner), Australia has a different challenge. Roof top solar systems across the roofs of householders are treated like a “spread out” utility scale solar farm that might otherwise sit in a paddock. In some parts of the country, there is so much electricity being generated from roof top solar during the day that the energy is curtailed (switched off) either by roof top inverters (an apparatus on the roof), or the authorities. For many owners of roof top solar, this feels like over-reach by the authorities as some unlucky few will have their solar panels switched off completely and will then be forced to buy utility mains power. A tension then arises between utilities and households over who has the right to produce and sell.
Given that rooftop solar continues to expand, this tension between consumer producers (rooftop solar owners), the utility producers (who can also be curtailed) and the authorities (who decide which entity wins/loses) will also continue. How to bridge the gap between centralized vs decentralized power is the critical question.
When we look at the underlying identity worldview, we can see that rooftop solar owners often identify as producers and sellers of electricity. The trades people and companies that sell solar systems to households are all geared around this understanding. It runs so deep that even people trying to set up large rooftop solar-battery systems primarily for their own use/self-sufficiency, and less for selling to the grid, often have a challenging time achieving it with their solar provider unless they have electrical engineering knowledge. Such is the nature of the rooftop solar installation sausage factory and revenue model with its assumptions around what householders need and want.
The Causal layered analysis below provides a deconstruction of the present and a reconstruction of an alternative future.
Table 2: By Satya Tanner and Sohail Inayatullah
Instead of a top-down market-forces approach to electricity, an alternative perspective that could bridge the gap between centralized and decentralized power generation is that of integrated energy for self-sufficiency. No person is an island, so this is not to say that everyone needs to be completely off grid and take care of themselves (except where required in rural/remote areas); rather, to create an interconnected self-sufficiency via a nested eco-system. This is in the same way that small ponds and streams sustain life in their immediate area but the excess water feeds into larger rivers and lakes.
Figure 4: Ordesa Valley Glacial Pond, Les Haines, CC 2.0 https://flic.kr/p/tXaNPZ
From the perspective of residential electricity this means self-sufficiency of the home, followed by the neighborhood, the region, and the nation where each level trades its excesses with its most immediate “neighbor” in need. It points to the excesses of rooftop battery and solar cooperating with community storage and generation, cooperating with regional storage and generation, cooperating with national storage and generation.
One way to visualize this could be that when the home produces excess electricity, the consumer/producer or prosumer might, in order of priority, sell it to their neighbor via a microgrid, followed by the community battery, followed by utility batteries and so forth. And likewise for the purchase of electricity.
Where there is too much electricity being produced for the grid to use, instead of being curtailed and forced to buy mains power, home systems might instead divert excess electricity to home storage, run appliances, and heat hot water. Likewise, utility scale renewable power generation should store its excess when there is more supply than demand. When there is instability in the grid, the home and community battery can be used via a virtual power plant to help stabilize the grid. Rather than winners and losers in the production and selling of electricity, we move to cooperating energy producers that maintain a level of autonomy yet support each other. Everyone can become a winner.
Scenarios
As the future is not fixed, rather a product of drivers, barriers, and our vision, here we explore possible no change through radical change scenarios. We use Inayatullah’s and Milojevic’ Change Progression Scenario method (Government of Malaysia, 2018: 58-66) with a modified CLA incasting.
No Change
In this initial scenario, there are clear winners and losers. The worldview and system are both top-down. The challenges of oversupply are not resolved. Prosumers are curtailed, and/or utilities are curtailed. When prosumers are curtailed, they are hit with costs rather than using their own “free” electricity. When utilities are curtailed, the assumptions and business case for utilities falls through. Developers lose money and eventually stop making the renewables projects required for energy security and cheaper electricity. The only real winner is the market: in a race to the bottom for our quality of life.
Marginal change
In this scenario, the regulators step in and negotiate solutions between the various stakeholders. They manage the conflict and create policy solutions to ensure the entire nation is a winner. However, there is a lack of autonomy, and a lack of localized energy security. Due to oversupply at the wrong times, consumers pay a premium to keep the conflict at bay.
Adaptive change
In this scenario, it is not just regulation that is critical but a shift of mindset. Technological novelty goes hand in hand with mindset novelty. There is a shift from vulnerability to cooperation, self-sufficiency. Virtual power plants and nested microgrids (Ishchenko, Kondabathini, Hong, Brissette, and Cintuglu, 2018.) are integrated at the edges of the grid providing energy security to communities. Policy shapes the market to enable equitable and cooperative access to electricity production: financing for home prosumers and partial community ownership in utilities. Everyone gets a piece of the financial and energy pie, ensuring a high degree of self-sufficiency/energy security whilst exchanging excesses and shortages with neighboring homes, businesses, communities, and regions.
Radical Change
In this scenario there are radical technology and philosophical shifts. Prosumers, integration and resilience, energy ecosystems beyond the current electricity supply. Possible technological advancements include Table-top fusion, wireless energy, self-repairing networks, radical decentralized innovations that give near-free energy and move energy workers downstream to the industries and planetary missions that make use of an abundant energy source. It is not just technology but dramatic decentralization where everyone can participate – deep energy democracy.
| No Change | Marginal Change | Adaptive Change | Radical Change | |
| System | Top down | Integrated | Self-sufficiency – nested systems | New electricity supplies – a focus on the unknown |
| Worldview | Individual innovation with corporate structures | Regulators negotiate between stakeholders | Regulation plus mindset shift toward cooperatives | Energy transformation and democracy |
| Myth/metaphor | Market wins – islands of power | Nation wins – connected Islands | Winner and winners – no one is an island | Choose your energy adventure |
Table 3. Incasted Scenarios. By Sohail Inayatullah and Satya Tanner
Conclusion
Working with a dozen plus energy providers and regulators across the world suggests that we are in a dramatic transition to a different future. The used future of fossil fuel and nuclear fission remains current, however. That said, there is the real possibility of moving toward a new energy cooperative model – integrated and decentralized – where all can be winners.
Taking a macrohistorical perspective, using the works of Nikolai Kardashev (1964), if humanity does not resolve the contradictions between global governance and energy, we will not make the transition from a type 0 to a type 1 planet. We will doom ourselves through climate change and nuclear war/accidents, as with other type 0 planets. The shift to renewables is not just for the sake of efficiency but necessary for planetary survival. A new model of society and energy – decentralized and integrated – is critical for the transition. This short essay suggests steps forward.
Imaginations of a planetary connected grid toward a type 1 civilization. Prompts by Inayatullah through Bing Co-pilot.
References
Government of Australia, Australia Energy Market Operator (2017). https://aemo.com.au/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/about-the-national-electricity-market-nem.
Government of Malaysia (2018). Framing Malaysian Higher Education 4.0. Ministry of Higher Education.
Inayatullah, S., Mercer, R. Milojevic, I., and Sweeney, J., (2023) (Eds). CLA 3.0. Tamkang University.
Ishchenko, D., Kondabathini, A., Hong, J., Brissette, A., and Cintuglu, M. (2018, August 30). Nested Microgrids for Increased Grid Resiliency. United States Department of Energy. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1797442.
Kardashev, N (1964). Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations, Soviet Astronomy A7 (8), pp. 217–221.
Molitor, G. (2004). The Power to Change the World: The Art of Forecasting, Potomac: MD, Public Policy Forecasting.
Peter, A. (2018). This Start-Up Lets Create Mini Power Grids for their Neighbors. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/90241777/this-startup-lets-villagers-create-mini-power-grids-for-their-neighbors.
Sheraz, U., Inayatullah, S., Shah, A., (2013). E-Health Futures in Bangladesh. Foresight. 15(3): pp. 177-189.
State Government of Queensland (2023). https://www.resources.qld.gov.au/critical-minerals/invest-in-qld/renewable-energy-powerhouse.
- This draws from work by Kirsten Henshaw and Andrew Cameron, Presentation at the MBS course on Futures thinking and Strategy Development, Melbourne, September 9, 2016. ↑
