Comprehensive energy solution planning (CESP) framework: an evidence-based approach for sustainable energy access projects in developing countries

Access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy remains a critical goal under the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, especially in remote areas of developing countries. Based on traditional engineering approaches, many energy solution planning tools have been developed to identify the optimal solution in these areas to assess the competition across different technological options. Nevertheless, these approaches, based on an economic optimum, do not necessarily grant long-term sustainability of the solution in specific local contexts, since they are not able to capture the social implications within the Energy-Development nexus. Moreover, also in light of the 2030 Agenda, scientific and grey literature on energy access highlights how energy solutions planning methodologies developed in the last decades need to be complemented by a more comprehensive view, able to integrate evidence from various disciplines, especially engineering and social sciences. Based on the above considerations, this paper introduces a novel framework under the name of CESP, where three social sciences-based phases complement three engineering phases, each one characterized by specific tools, to offer an informed decision framework for the local planner. CESP encompasses a set of techno-economic and socio-technical actions to prevent potential failure as evidenced by a counterfactual analysis used to identify the reasons behind past project failures. The CESP framework presents a sequential and iterative structure that underlines the cyclic perspective of a holistic decision process where social sciences feed the engineering analysis and vice versa. Finally, CESP emerges as a practical and applicable framework for supporting energy access planning in critical areas.