Limiting future climate change is increasingly getting attention across the globe. As a result, energy generation and consumption patterns are changing, also known as clean energy transition.
However, this transition is not going uniform across the communities, making it towards economic disparities. There are certain underserved areas far from the reach of this clean energy transition. Towards this, it needs to be ensured that the low carbon energy economy is built equitably. This is more related to the concept of energy justice that strives to provide that clean energy is accessible to all.
Specific indicators provide information on the distribution of disadvantaged communities or areas. These are census-based data of rural-urban classifications, income distribution, unemployment, and other demographics. One can refer to these indicators to geographically locate the under-served areas.
Then, on the other hand, there are areas having high potential for cost-effective renewable energy development. These areas can be highlighted using the data such as utility-scale photovoltaics potential, residential and commercial roof-top photovoltaics potential, land-based wind, geothermal and hydropower development potential datasets.
Geospatial technology offers tools to correlate various information layers and resultantly come up with the deprived areas that can be cost-effectively developed with renewable energy-related installations.
In this way, researchers have helped the decision-makers prioritize the areas for clean energy transitions.
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