We often refer to the energy transition in terms of the now-familiar “4Ds”: decarbonisation, decentralisation, digitalisation, and democratisation. But while the first three benefit from well-developed frameworks, financial pipelines, and political urgency, the fourth, democratisation, still feels like a promise more than a process. It’s something everyone agrees with in principle, but few take seriously in practice. And yet, that fourth “D” is precisely what determines whether the transition will be experienced as an opportunity, or just another top-down transformation that bypasses the people it’s meant to serve.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this tension, between ambition and participation, speed and deliberation, especially after spending two days immersed in a workshop at the UCL on energy governance in Africa, Europe, and beyond. The discussions were wide-ranging and full of insight: from grid resilience and decentralised ownership to local energy systems in Europe, Nigeria, Ouganda, South Africa, Brazil, the Philippines and beyond. But what I left with was not a checklist or a model. It was a sharper sense of just how many people still aren’t being asked what energy means to them, or what kind of future they want it to power.
Because energy isn’t neutral, and never has been. It’s political, cultural, economic. It shapes who works, who rests, who celebrates, who decides, who moves, who stays behind. So when we talk about “energy”, and “access”, we need to ask: access to what, for whom, and for what purpose?
If energy is a right, people have a right to shape it.
Energy is not a wire. It’s a capability.
In Europe, we tend to think of energy as a utility: a technology to unlock, a tariff to design, a service to be paid for, a regulated, and delivered. And perhaps, a consumer to protect and empower. But in many of the places I’ve worked, in Europe, across Madagascar, Burkina Faso and others through the EURICA project (part of LEAP-RE), energy is never just a commodity. It’s an enabler. It determines whether a boy doesn’t drop out of school to go to work, a girl gets home safely, a woman can access lifesaving surgery, whether children can read after sunset, whether a family can keep food fresh, stay connected, or earn a living without walking for hours.
Energy poverty, in this sense, is not about income or infrastructure: it’s a capability challenge.
It shapes what people can and cannot do. And in many cases, people are moving, to cities, to electrified zones, just to access the basic services that electricity makes possible.
But what we call “energy” is often little more than a connection. A token measure of inclusion that overlooks what energy actually enables. Too often, solar home systems are dismissed as being “for women and children”—small, domestic, easy to deploy—while large, centralised systems are imagined as serious, ambitious, masculine. I’ve seen this dynamic in so many different contexts, and it says more about the imaginary we build around energy than about the systems themselves.
Not all projects are asked the same questions
One theme that kept surfacing during the workshop, though often indirectly, was the asymmetry in how we evaluate different types of energy projects. Community-led, decentralised initiatives are expected to be the ultimate commitment, demonstrating everything at once: financial viability, gender sensitivity, participatory design, long-term sustainability, and replicability. These projects are scrutinised not just for their performance, but for their philosophy.
Meanwhile, large infrastructure developments are often allowed to proceed without the same level of interrogation. Their size is assumed to be synonymous with importance. Their complexity becomes justification. Their centralised model, somehow, still carries the aura of inevitability.
This is not to pit one against the other—I don’t believe in simplistic binaries between big and small, or central and distributed. We need both, with the same levels of safeguards and accountability. What I do question is the implicit hierarchy of value, the quiet assumption that large systems are inherently more meaningful, more scalable, more serious. That is not always the case. And it risks overlooking the slow, quiet power of projects that are small enough to listen to, and stable enough to last.
What makes energy systems last isn’t always what we measure
When I reflect on the most successful projects I’ve encountered directly all around the globe or through the Energ’ Ethic Podcast, the consistent factor isn’t just technology or funding. It’s trust.
Infrastructure doesn’t change lives. Trust and ownership do.
From Burkina Faso to Madagascar, I’ve seen what happens when people are truly involved.
When local systems are built with people, they last longer.
They perform better.
They invite care, repair, innovation.
This is something I’ve also seen in other contexts, like the Baltic synchronisation process. Technical alignment mattered, of course, but what really moved things forward was trust, between institutions, across borders, within communities. Trust that made it possible to coordinate, to share risks, to be accountable.
We often treat trust as a soft factor, something that can be added later. But it isn’t. Trust is infrastructure. It holds systems together when the external support fades. It’s what allows maintenance to happen, tariffs to be accepted, and problems to be solved locally. Without it, the best-designed project is fragile.
So what does success actually look like?
In energy planning, we still reward scale, speed, cost-efficiency. But those aren’t always the metrics that matter most to the people living with the outcomes. In many places, what matters is whether energy reduces drudgery, creates opportunity, makes life safer or more liveable. Whether it allows for rest, or simply extends the working day. Whether it brings autonomy, or just another bill.
This is why I keep coming back to the idea that energy access must be defined from the ground up. Not in abstract terms, but in relation to how people live, and what they value.
From UCL and beyond, the ingredients for success are clear:
• respect for local practices and needs
• time and budget for deep engagement
• training and long-term support
• meaningful ownership
• two-way accountability
• clarity on what success actually means
Home. Community. Productive use: they’re lived realities. They are shaped by culture, gender, class, mobility. And they should shape the systems we design, too.
It’s a call to listen better.
There’s no question that the world needs more clean energy infrastructure, and fast. But speed cannot come at the cost of consent, or cultural fit, or the ability to make mistakes and learn from them. Climate, competitiveness, and security are three sides of the same triangle of prosperity. But we can’t keep talking about ownership participation if we don’t put skin in the game, if we don’t make space for contradiction, discomfort, and real negotiation (and no, “consultation” isn’t “cooperation”).
As one speaker at UCL said,
“People don’t care about kilowatts. They care about outcomes.”
This is the core of what I explored with Thomas Samuel when we talked about frugal innovation. it’s not about doing less: it’s about doing what matters.
What’s needed is clarity: about whose terms we’re using, whose needs we’re meeting, and who gets to define what counts as success.
The energy transition is already happening. But the question of who gets to shape it, that’s still up for debate.
And maybe, just maybe, it’s time we asked better questions.
If this resonates, you might also like:
The “access-washing” dilemma reflecting on a conversation with William Brent
Can frugal innovation light up the world?, following a chat with Thomas SAMUEL
Energy is a Right Shaping the Transition
Unlocking Africa’s energy potential, some thoughts following my trips to Africa in 2022
