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Abstract: The Canary Islands are heavily dependent on fossil fuels which intensifies the need for a decarbonisation pathway by 2050. Our study provides a comprehensive approach to identify possible energy transition pathways in line with different stakeholder perspectives. We conducted two rounds of 16 foresight interviews in the region with stakeholders representing different groups. The first round focused on understanding the current challenges and opportunities of the energy system, while the second round aimed at identifying the overall vision of the stakeholders for their local energy system. We have found that there are still significant regulatory difficulties that hinder implementation of technologies and innovative business models. However, the main challenges highlighted were achieving a transition without energy justice and the lack of collaboration between stakeholders. Different pathways have been identified but all interviewees emphasised that the future energy system needs to be human-centred and support citizen participation, prosumers, and energy communities.
Keywords: Decarbonisation; Human-centric; Energy Transition; Pathways; Foresight; Stakeholder perspectives; Canary Islands.
1Introduction
While the vision of decarbonisation by 2050 is clear, the pathway and strategy to achieve this vision remains a challenge and can differ depending on the context (Heaslip & Fahy, 2018). Therefore, 'local' energy transitions (Akhatova et al., 2020; Dobravec et al., 2021) require place-based solutions and actions to achieve 2050 decarbonisation goals (Powell et al., 2021). This research aims to demonstrate how the local context can directly or indirectly influence energy transition pathways either by creating barriers or accelerating it. Therefore, this study seeks to identify how the regional context creates the conditions to achieve local decarbonisation or influence the path-dependence of the required actions. At the same time, the aim of this study is to highlight priorities for achieving a human-centred energy transition. One of these priorities is justice and inclusiveness of the energy transition with the focus of enabling citizens to take a more active role in the future energy system. Local energy transitions and the facilitation of this changing role of citizens requires participation and collaboration of all stakeholders in and outside the energy value chain that play an important role in energy transition. Therefore, this research also contributes to promoting a bottom-up approach in the decarbonisation pathway that supports initiative, collaboration, and partnership of different energy...