Attributes of Socio-Technical Baseline Capacities for Energy Transition in the North: Opportunities and Challenges for Gwich'in Communities, Northwest Territories
Today’s societies confront significant challenges concerning historic energy systems, which are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the threat of climate change. Energy systems need to be adapted to create greater resilience for the future. However, ensuring long-term success in community energy dev...
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ftusaskatchewan:oai:harvest.usask.ca:10388/13998 2023-05-15T13:08:01+02:00 Attributes of Socio-Technical Baseline Capacities for Energy Transition in the North: Opportunities and Challenges for Gwich'in Communities, Northwest Territories McMaster, Rhys G Noble, Bram Poelzer, Greg Patrick, Bob Aitken, Alec Mitchell, Matthew 2022-06-09T20:41:07Z application/pdf https://hdl.handle.net/10388/13998 en eng University of Saskatchewan https://hdl.handle.net/10388/13998 TC-SSU-13998 Energy transition Socio-technical transition Renewable energy Northern energy Thesis text 2022 ftusaskatchewan 2022-06-11T22:10:22Z Today’s societies confront significant challenges concerning historic energy systems, which are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the threat of climate change. Energy systems need to be adapted to create greater resilience for the future. However, ensuring long-term success in community energy development in the North requires more than building new projects – it requires understanding the local socio-technical capacity to design, implement, and maintain renewable energy projects. Consequently, the design of community-appropriate sustainable energy systems requires a socio-technical understanding of a community’s baseline capacity for energy transition. In 2018, through the 2030 Energy Strategy: A Path to More Affordable, Secure, and Sustainable Energy in the Northwest Territories, the Government of Northwest Territories encouraged local or community level renewable energy development within the territory. Communities in the territory considering their energy futures include the Gwich’in communities of Aklavik, Fort McPherson, Inuvik, and Tsiigehtchic. The challenge, however, is that there is limited research on what a socio-technical baseline capacity profile for a remote northern Indigenous community involves. Therefore, the purpose of my research is to understand the socio-technical baseline capacity for energy transition in Gwich’in communities. The initial objective consisted of developing a conceptual framework for socio-technical baseline capacity profiles. The rapid assessment framework is conceptualized based on the energy context of rural and remote regions in the North and informed by recent energy planning grey literature and scholarship. The conceptual framework was then applied with the four partner communities, based on semi-structured interviews with community members, Gwich’in leaders, intermediary organizations, and energy sector representatives, identifying key strengths, challenges, and regional trends across the partner communities. Results identify several key capacity opportunities and ... Thesis Aklavik Fort McPherson Gwich’in Inuvik Northwest Territories Tsiigehtchic University of Saskatchewan: eCommons@USASK Aklavik ENVELOPE(-135.011,-135.011,68.219,68.219) Fort McPherson ENVELOPE(-134.826,-134.826,67.433,67.433) Inuvik ENVELOPE(-133.610,-133.610,68.341,68.341) Northwest Territories Tsiigehtchic ENVELOPE(-133.693,-133.693,67.429,67.429) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of Saskatchewan: eCommons@USASK |
op_collection_id |
ftusaskatchewan |
language |
English |
topic |
Energy transition Socio-technical transition Renewable energy Northern energy |
spellingShingle |
Energy transition Socio-technical transition Renewable energy Northern energy McMaster, Rhys G Attributes of Socio-Technical Baseline Capacities for Energy Transition in the North: Opportunities and Challenges for Gwich'in Communities, Northwest Territories |
topic_facet |
Energy transition Socio-technical transition Renewable energy Northern energy |
description |
Today’s societies confront significant challenges concerning historic energy systems, which are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the threat of climate change. Energy systems need to be adapted to create greater resilience for the future. However, ensuring long-term success in community energy development in the North requires more than building new projects – it requires understanding the local socio-technical capacity to design, implement, and maintain renewable energy projects. Consequently, the design of community-appropriate sustainable energy systems requires a socio-technical understanding of a community’s baseline capacity for energy transition. In 2018, through the 2030 Energy Strategy: A Path to More Affordable, Secure, and Sustainable Energy in the Northwest Territories, the Government of Northwest Territories encouraged local or community level renewable energy development within the territory. Communities in the territory considering their energy futures include the Gwich’in communities of Aklavik, Fort McPherson, Inuvik, and Tsiigehtchic. The challenge, however, is that there is limited research on what a socio-technical baseline capacity profile for a remote northern Indigenous community involves. Therefore, the purpose of my research is to understand the socio-technical baseline capacity for energy transition in Gwich’in communities. The initial objective consisted of developing a conceptual framework for socio-technical baseline capacity profiles. The rapid assessment framework is conceptualized based on the energy context of rural and remote regions in the North and informed by recent energy planning grey literature and scholarship. The conceptual framework was then applied with the four partner communities, based on semi-structured interviews with community members, Gwich’in leaders, intermediary organizations, and energy sector representatives, identifying key strengths, challenges, and regional trends across the partner communities. Results identify several key capacity opportunities and ... |
author2 |
Noble, Bram Poelzer, Greg Patrick, Bob Aitken, Alec Mitchell, Matthew |
format |
Thesis |
author |
McMaster, Rhys G |
author_facet |
McMaster, Rhys G |
author_sort |
McMaster, Rhys G |
title |
Attributes of Socio-Technical Baseline Capacities for Energy Transition in the North: Opportunities and Challenges for Gwich'in Communities, Northwest Territories |
title_short |
Attributes of Socio-Technical Baseline Capacities for Energy Transition in the North: Opportunities and Challenges for Gwich'in Communities, Northwest Territories |
title_full |
Attributes of Socio-Technical Baseline Capacities for Energy Transition in the North: Opportunities and Challenges for Gwich'in Communities, Northwest Territories |
title_fullStr |
Attributes of Socio-Technical Baseline Capacities for Energy Transition in the North: Opportunities and Challenges for Gwich'in Communities, Northwest Territories |
title_full_unstemmed |
Attributes of Socio-Technical Baseline Capacities for Energy Transition in the North: Opportunities and Challenges for Gwich'in Communities, Northwest Territories |
title_sort |
attributes of socio-technical baseline capacities for energy transition in the north: opportunities and challenges for gwich'in communities, northwest territories |
publisher |
University of Saskatchewan |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/10388/13998 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-135.011,-135.011,68.219,68.219) ENVELOPE(-134.826,-134.826,67.433,67.433) ENVELOPE(-133.610,-133.610,68.341,68.341) ENVELOPE(-133.693,-133.693,67.429,67.429) |
geographic |
Aklavik Fort McPherson Inuvik Northwest Territories Tsiigehtchic |
geographic_facet |
Aklavik Fort McPherson Inuvik Northwest Territories Tsiigehtchic |
genre |
Aklavik Fort McPherson Gwich’in Inuvik Northwest Territories Tsiigehtchic |
genre_facet |
Aklavik Fort McPherson Gwich’in Inuvik Northwest Territories Tsiigehtchic |
op_relation |
https://hdl.handle.net/10388/13998 TC-SSU-13998 |
_version_ |
1766072235546640384 |