Workshop “Mini-Grids for Resilient Energy Supply: the Community of San Rafael as Case Study”

* NOTE: This registration is only for the workshop on September 27th&28th.
You can decide later if you participate in the seminar during the winter semester.
The participation in both the workshop and the seminar are required for SuRE students.

The workshop will introduce Mini-Grids as a tool for a resilient energy supply. Some approaches to transformation and development of local community systems will be presented and discussed. This includes Mini-Grid energy systems community-embedded design, planning and financing. An introduction to resilience research will be framed in order to understand the main links and strategies necessary to promote resilient energy supply through the development of Mini-Grids and community energy systems. The expert talks, lectures and discussions during the workshop will be guided by applying the theory and experience to a case study in San Rafael.

University students from other study programmes (EPOS/AGEP or the University of Oldenburg) are welcome to participate both in the workshop and in the module. The workshop can be attended both as a stand-alone unit, or in combination with the whole module. The workshop is required part of the module Resilient Energy Systems within the third semester of the SuRE Curriculum.

The case study of San Rafael

San Rafael is a community in Colombia searching to develop a sustainable and resilient energy supply, and its case study has been within a research process for a couple of years. During the workshop, the basic theoretical concepts necessary to understand and begin grasping the scope, current status and research activities of the case study will be presented. This includes the introduction and discussion of the results of applying some of the presented approaches and methods to the case study, and the participation of partners from Colombia. Besides, across the workshop, theory and previous results will build the basis to identify the next steps to be analysed for the community planning of the local energy system in San Rafael.

Next Steps

The identified steps will be analysed during the winter term in the hybrid master module “Resilient Energy Systems”, which the workshop participants are invited to attend. The regular master module “Resilient Energy Systems” of the SuRE programme at the university of Oldenburg, will take place during the University winter semester 2023 (October 23 – January 24). It will be held in hybrid format (In presence and online) to allow the attendance of all interested participants, including our partners from Colombia. During the module, deeper theoretical approaches of resilience research, their link to other disciplines and other disciplinary methods of resilience analysis (e.g. from environmental modelling or energy informatics) are presented.