SOLAD Integrated Power Solutions Ltd

Due to the diminishing supply of fossil fuels and the overall increase in their prices, the focus on renewable energy and sustainable development has recently taken centre stage within important organisations like the EU and UN. The greenhouse gas emissions that result from burning fossil fuels cannot be exaggerated, which is why we as humans are beginning to consider more environmentally friendly ways to conduct our daily lives.

Much of the focus on gender in renewable energy has focused on addressing gender efforts at the household and community levels, e.g., through improving women’s access to renewable energy and clean cookstoves, as well as enhancing women’s economic benefits and entrepreneurship. Large scale renewable energy as a topic, conversely, has received less attention from a gender perspective than small-scale, off-grid renewable energy, and indeed still constitutes a distinct knowledge gap.

Because not all women nor all men are the same, it is important to understand specific differences among age groups and other relevant characteristics, such as socioeconomic and livelihood groups; energy producer or consumer status; and type of energy use. Perhaps less obvious to project designers and implementers – but critical nonetheless to the outcomes of a project – are the social and gender norms and relations that prescribe what women and men can and cannot do in households, communities, and in labour markets and energy value chains. These norms, which often prescribe decision-making roles around land or women’s mobility, are not set in stone.