Implementing SDGs to a Sustainable Rural Village Development from Community Empowerment: Linking Energy, Education, Innovation, and Research

Rural depopulation is a worldwide fact and has a domino effect on medium and small cities, which act as a nucleus of reference for small towns. Moreover, the United Nations (UN) stressed that disparities between rural and urban areas are pronounced and still growing over time. Globally, people in rural areas lack access to modern energy services, which affects productivity, educational and health services, exacerbating poverty, among other things. Given this reality, the following research questions arise: how can we act to reverse this reality? Are there examples of transformation in rural contexts where community empowerment is a key strategy? This paper aims at describing the transformation process of a small rural municipality towards a sustainable development, in parallel to the activation of the local productivity that helps to eliminate the effects of rural depopulation. Therefore, the project ALMIA was established as an example of a sustainable village that is Almatret (Catalonia-Spain). The backbone of such project is the commitment to community empowerment, where the main results are the generation of networks with experts and researchers to help the municipality’s energy transition, the involvement of the local administration, the commitment to technological development, as well as the socio-community development. Moreover, the activities developed within the project ALMIA are aligned with the UNs Sustainable Development Goals, alignment that is analyzed in detail. Thus, this paper aims to further highlight existing sustainable development practices related to community empowerment in order to promote similar practices.

Acceptance of Main Power Generation Sources among Japan’s Undergraduate Students: The Roles of Knowledge, Experience, Trust, and Perceived Risk and Benefit

In Japan, graduates who become independent professionals in society have the right to choose energy providers given the liberalization of the electricity market in the country. This issue renders student perceptions regarding various types of energy generation a critical factor for decision making. Accordingly, we explored the risk and benefit perceptions of undergraduates regarding Japan’s main energy resources, namely, liquid natural gas (LNG), coal, hydropower, solar and nuclear resources, and petroleum. We also assessed energy acceptance among the target population and its influencing factors, such as student age and gender, school department, hometown, knowledge and experience of main power sources in Japan, and trust in government and power plant operation. These objectives were accomplished through field surveys and empirical characterizations of energy acceptance determinants. Compared with risk perception, benefit perception regarding all kinds of power generation was significantly predicted by knowledge. Experience explained only the perception of benefit from coal power generation, and benefit perception more strongly predicted energy acceptance than did risk perception. The findings suggested the necessity of university energy education programs for increased student knowledge of energy sources. Energy companies should increase energy benefits from economic, environmental, and energy security and safety perspectives to enhance energy acceptance among students. On the basis of the results, we classified energy sources in Japan into obscure (LNG and petroleum), well-known (coal and nuclear), and exploratory (hydropower and solar) resources—a first in the energy field and contributory to energy education design.

Local Renewable Energy Development: School Teachers’ Perceptions, Attitudes and Teaching Intentions

This study investigated factors that might influence teachers’ intention to choose Renewable Energy Sources as an optional module. The research involved 454 Greek teachers working in the archipelagos of the southern Aegean region in Greece, an area with significant potential for the development of Renewable Energy Sources (RES). This potential however remains largely unexploited partly due to local community reluctance towards RES development in the area. Although renewable energy education is considered to be necessary for further RES development, RES are not among teachers’ first choice as an environmental module. We found that, despite teachers demonstrating highly positive attitudes towards RES, they consider local communities to be rather non-supportive of local RES development. A relationship between teachers’ moderate intention to teach RES and teachers’ perceptions of locals as non-supportive towards RES was found. We also found that local teachers feel more competent to teach about RES than non-local teachers. The latter are more motivated to comply with social pressure than locals. These findings emphasize the need for renewable energy education policy makers to take into account local communities’ role in influencing the teaching of RES and to provide teachers with the appropriate skills in order to competently handle potential oppositions.

Energy Conservation Behaviors and Awareness of Polish, Czech and Ukrainian Students: A Case Study

Energy education of the younger generation, who are the future decision makers, investors, consumers, scientists, or skilled labor force in new energy technologies, is crucial for the future of Europe and the world. However, beyond the long-term goals of energy education policies, the short-term effects on energy conservation and the promotion of renewable energy sources are equally as important. The main purpose of the paper is to identify and analyze the behavior of students (who study the issues related to energy saving and RES), in terms of energy conservation. The conducted analysis focused on examining and comparing the scope of responses of the surveyed students in individual countries, especially in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Ukraine. The survey was carried out using the computer-assisted web interview (CAWI). Descriptive and graphical methods were used to present the results. Statistical analysis of the collected data included basic measures of descriptive statistics and the chi-square test. The main results of the study are as follows: Almost 60% of the surveyed students follow the principles of energy conservation; however increased educational activities on eco-energy behaviors is recommended. The share of RES in the heating systems of the studied residential buildings is 9%, on average, with the highest percentage of houses in Poland (14%) and the lowest in Ukraine (only 2.6%). When compared with literature reports, the collect data show that educational activities can be as effective as a tool in implementing RES and pro-environmental behaviors as the government’s environmental policy and household subsidies.

Wind Energy Education through Low-Power Wind Turbines and Advanced Software Tools

Wind energy has become a major source of power generation in recent years. This fact, along with the growing expectations for future decades, makes the study of renewable generation systems based on wind energy a subject of great importance for engineers from different disciplines. Although there are numerous research articles that deal with the technoeconomic aspects of this type of system, there are few works focused on the development of new didactic strategies to improve the academic excellence of undergraduate engineering students. This paper describes how to boost the student understanding regarding wind power generation by combining the use of advanced software tools normally used in the design of wind farms, such as System Advisor Model (National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL) and WindFarm (RESOFT) with lowpower wind turbines operating in self-consumption and gridconnected modes. Moreover, it is also described how wind turbines constitute an interesting option for distributed generation system in microgrids.

An Introductory Energy Course to Promote Broad Energy Education for Undergraduate Engineering Students

Engineering graduates must be prepared to support our world’s need for a clean and sustainable energy future. Complex problems related to energy and sustainability require engineers to consider the broad spectrum of interrelated consequences including human and environmental health, sociopolitical, and economic factors. Teaching engineering students about energy within a societal context, simultaneous with developing technical knowledge and skills, will better prepare them to solve real-world problems. Yet few energy courses that approach energy topics from a human-centered perspective exist within engineering programs. Engineering students enrolled in energy programs often take such courses as supplemental to their course of study. This paper presents an engineering course that approaches energy education from a socio-technical perspective, emphasizing the complex interactions of energy technologies with sustainability dimensions. Course content and learning activities are structured around learning outcomes that require students to gain technical knowledge as well as an understanding of broader energy-related impacts. The course attracts students from a variety of majors and grade levels. A mixed quantitative/qualitative assessment conducted from 2019–2021 indicates successful achievement of course learning outcomes. Students demonstrated significant gains in technical content knowledge as well as the ability to critically address complex sociotechnical issues related to current and future energy systems.

Can HCI Help Increase People’s Engagement in Sustainable Development? A Case Study on Energy Literacy

The adoption of energy efficiency practices and increased penetration of renewable energy sources in the power system are estimated to play a key role in the decarbonization of the energy sector, helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ultimately fight climate change. To foster energy transition, energy education initiatives should primarily target the citizens and be designed adopting a User-Centered Design (UCD) approach and HCI methodologies. This paper describes how UCD/HCI can inform the design of citizens’ energy education initiatives by presenting a case study—the development of an information platform targeting Madeiran citizens. The article describes the design process, from ideation to prototype and validation. Methods used in each phase (card sorting, semi-structured interviews, brainstorming sessions, think-aloud protocol and surveys) are described. Results of each phase and how they have informed the following steps are presented, together with a detailed description of the resulting information platform and initial results in terms of acceptance and interaction with the system. Our initial results support the hypothesis that adopting an HCI perspective can nurture the development of energy education initiatives targeting citizens, bringing a user-centered approach to the design of such initiatives.

INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS’ ASSESSMENT THROUGH SDG TARGETS: TOWARDS a COMPREHENSIVE FRAMEWORK

The achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is of paramount importance “for the peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and in the future” (United Nations, 2015; Økland, 2015). Important changes are needed in order to achieve these goals, and infrastructure projects (IP) are critical to facilitate these changes at local and global levels, across health, energy, education, transport, communication and other critical infrastructure needs. However, a gap exists in understanding how SDGs are applied below the global-national levels. In order to increase global and local impact of infrastructure investments, an improved understanding is needed at organisational and infrastructure project levels. In this context, the purpose of this research study is firstly to build on a comprehensive literature review to investigate the existing UN SDG targets in relation to IP, and secondly, to lay a foundation for a comprehensive framework to structure research systematically in this field. This approach can help further our understanding of the topic, thereby providing an important contribution for regulators, policymakers, academia and practitioners on how to align IP to SDGs objectives. This will deliver increased value from infrastructure investments and enable the project management community to generate local impact on global issues, for ‘people and the planet, now and in the future’.