Just and Sustainable Energy Futures for the Isolated Communities in the Brazilian Amazon: An Energy Democracy Approach

Worldwide, energy has become a central point of sustainable development as it represents a key element for any socioeconomic system (Guzowski et al., 2021). Guaranteeing access to clean, modern and affordable energy for all people is one of the biggest challenges of the energy transition, and the lack of it is known as energy poverty. Poor access to quality energy services generates social exclusion and limits development, mainly in countries that already have strong inequalities characteristics (Guzowski et al., 2021).
This is the case in Brazil, where energy poverty persists in vulnerable communities that already suffer from the lack of other essential services (Bezerra et al., 2022). Energy poverty in Brazil is more prominent in the Northernregion, largely occupied by the Amazon Forest, because of the lack of public infrastructure in the rural areas which is also related to a wider context of geographical and economic isolation (Mazonne, 2020). Because of its isolation, most communities living in the Amazon are not connected to the National Interconnected System. Many of these communities are attended by the Isolated Systems. According to EPE (2022a), there are 212 Isolated Systems in the country which are historically supplied in their majority by diesel power plants (EPE, 2022a), a costly and pollutant approach that uses complex logistics (da Ponte et al., 2021).
The Ministry of Mines and Energy is committed in investigating new solutions to aggregate more renewable energy technologies in the Isolated Systems (EPE, 2022). Despite the efforts, diesel-based solutions are still predominant, even in recent projects (EPE, 2022). The next auction for contracting new power capacity to the Isolated Systems will happen in 2023 (DOU, 2022) and new attempts to encourage renewable energy projects might appear.
Mazzone (2020) highlights that policies for a long-term and successful energy transition in Brazilian Amazon must be designed around the needs of the final user in order to consider a more accurate projection of energy demand based on local people's sociocultural profile. Since the eyes of policymakers and other energy actors are turned to this issue, this is a crucial moment to guarantee that future energy policies in the isolated communities in the Amazon will then take a democratic path.
A democratic energy future approach is related to the energy democracy concept, which recognizes the importance of widening the participation of diverse actors within energy politics by aiming to include to the debate historically marginalised groups, like low-income communities, communities of colour and indigenous communities (Burke & Stephens, 2017). Energy democracy then calls that important decisions regarding energy futures to be made by local communities and citizens instead of a small number of powerful corporations (Burke & Stephens, 2017).
In this context, the central questions of this research proposal are: (1) what does a just and sustainable energy future mean to isolated communities in the Brazilian Amazon?, and (2) which policy and regulatory instruments could be proposed to ensure a just and sustainable energy future to the isolated communities in the Brazilian Amazon in the long term?
To achieve this goal, the methodology of the research project involves interviewing local citizens to understand how communities themselves think a just and sustainable energy transition would be for answering question (1). To complement these interviews and aiming to answer question (2), a range of energy actors and policymakers, from federal to local level, will be also interviewed to explore how the communities' wishes could be realised. As an outcome, it is expected to provide valuable contributions to the national policymakers on which policy instruments should be applied to provide a just and sustainable energy future to the isolated communities in the Brazilian Amazon in the long term?