Community engagement to connect people to power and each other

The Community Energy Toolkit (COMET) is a role-playing game built around a representation of a mini-grid system, intended as an educational and collaborative planning tool in designing a community-sized mini-grid system. One of COMET’s affiliate partners, Energy Action Partners (ENACT), has agreed to issue free licenses to all the TEA-LP university partners who are delivering the TEA-LP mini-grids course, as well as offering to instruct the module that deals with community engagement and feasibility studies. We look forward to our partners’ feedback as they engage their students with COMET. We were fortunate to connect with one of the developers, Ms Ayu Abdullah from ENACT, who shared with us some key insights into COMET.

1. What was the key motivation for the development of COMET?


AA: The key motivation behind COMET’s development was to address a critical and persistent gap in energy access and mini-grid planning: meaningful community engagement. While it is widely acknowledged that involving communities is essential for the success of energy access projects, this step is often overlooked, under-resourced or challenging to implement effectively. The absence of robust community engagement can lead to misaligned expectations, underutilised energy systems, and financial losses. COMET was conceived as an innovative, interactive, and participatory platform to address these challenges by fostering ownership of the planning process and ensuring inclusive participation.

COMET enables stakeholders—including communities, developers, operators, and funders—to collaborate effectively in designing decentralised energy systems. For communities, COMET provides the tools and information necessary to make informed, collective decisions about their energy needs and priorities. This helps ensure that energy solutions are tailored to local needs and priorities while being aligned with local contexts, institutions, and management structures. Furthermore, by fostering collaboration among developers, operators, and funders, COMET contributes to better system design, improved implementation processes, and enhanced financial sustainability. This comprehensive approach bridges the gap between technical planning and community realities, ensuring that energy solutions are not only technically robust but also socially equitable and economically viable.

Ms Ayu Abdullah presenting on COMET at the MGTW last year. Source: TEA-LP

2. What skills does COMET teach?


AA: COMET is designed to build essential skills that support sustainable energy access, focusing on three key areas: energy literacy, participatory planning, and decision-making. For community members, the platform demystifies energy systems by illustrating how appliances impact energy consumption, explaining the implications of tariff structures on household budgets, and highlighting the trade-offs involved in energy use. This knowledge equips communities to make informed choices that reflect their collective needs and aspirations, ultimately enabling them to utilise energy more productively. Improved energy usage can directly contribute to enhanced livelihoods by supporting new income-generating opportunities, improving access to education, and facilitating better healthcare services through reliable energy systems.
For developers and policymakers, COMET provides invaluable insights into interpreting community priorities, assessing demand-side data, and designing energy systems that align with actual demand or usage patterns. By ensuring participatory planning, the platform enables projects to incorporate community input from the outset, resulting in solutions that are not only inclusive and effective but also aligned with local needs, priorities, and contexts. This alignment leads to better system design and implementation, fosters collaboration among stakeholders, and helps create opportunities for improved revenue generation and long-term sustainability. By bridging the knowledge gap between technical experts and local communities, COMET fosters a shared understanding that enhances collaboration, drives productive energy usage, and improves overall project outcomes.

3. What has been the most significant or surprising thing that has emerged since you have rolled it out?


AA: One of the most significant findings since COMET’s rollout has been the depth and richness of the insights gathered from communities. While feedback suggests that participants value and enjoy the process, what stands out most is the nuanced, context-specific input communities provide. 
- In two adjacent communities with similar socio-demographic profiles, differing values regarding fairness in tariffs were highlighted: one community preferred fixed rates to ensure everyone paid the same amount monthly, while the other advocated for consumption-based tariffs as a fairer model.
- Heavy lighting loads observed between 3-5am were attributed to morning prayers, a usage pattern that would not have been anticipated otherwise.
- Seasonal peaks in electricity usage were noted during periods when families hosted visiting relatives, reflecting cultural practices that impacted energy demand.
- A reliance on remittances was identified in some communities, resulting in higher actual cash flows than reported incomes suggested. This explained elevated electricity usage patterns that initially seemed misaligned with reported financial data.

These examples illustrate how nuanced, context-specific insights from communities have enhanced the design of mini-grid projects, ensuring they align more closely with local realities and priorities. This input often reveals details about their values, priorities, and decision-making processes that developers and planners might not have otherwise considered. Such insights are invaluable for designing energy projects and mini-grid management structures that are better aligned with the unique characteristics and needs of each community.

Additionally, COMET’s role as a digital tool enables the collection of valuable data throughout the engagement process. This data not only refines the understanding of local contexts but also supports more informed decision-making by stakeholders, including developers, operators, and funders. By integrating this detailed understanding into project design, COMET helps ensure that systems are not only technically effective but also socially and culturally appropriate. This approach strengthens trust among stakeholders and creates a foundation for more sustainable and successful energy solutions.

TEA-LP partners engaging with various software applications, including COMET at the MGTW. Source: TEA-LP

4. What has the feedback on COMET been like? Any key strengths or areas for growth?


AA: Feedback on COMET has been positive across diverse stakeholder groups. Users highlight its ability to foster collaboration, its user-focused design, and its effectiveness in streamlining community engagement processes that are traditionally resource-intensive. The platform’s adaptability to different contexts has also been highlighted as a strength, enabling it to address the unique challenges of various regions and communities.
Looking ahead, COMET continues to evolve to address its current limitations and better serve diverse energy setups, such as solar home systems and other decentralised solutions beyond mini-grids. For example, the platform’s reliance on specific networking architectures has presented scalability challenges for local deployments, often requiring initial technical expertise. To overcome this, the COMET team is developing a cloud-based version, which will simplify deployment, reduce reliance on specialised skills, and enable faster feature updates. Additionally, integrating advanced data analytics will allow users to generate demand projections and gather critical insights directly within the platform, eliminating the need for separate analysis tools. These improvements aim to enhance COMET’s scalability, accessibility, and versatility, ensuring its growing impact on global energy access.

5. Can you share any tangible examples of COMET’s use leading to successful mini-grid installation and development?


AA: COMET has been deployed in over 100 decentralised energy projects worldwide. A standout example is its application in Fiji, where COMET was used in demand assessments for 75 mini-grid sites, as part of a multi-stakeholder initiative (details available at ASU-LEAPS Fiji project) to achieve universal energy access. By replacing traditional survey methods, COMET significantly reduced the time and resources required for project planning while ensuring that each mini-grid addressed the specific needs and priorities of the communities involved.
The Fiji project highlights how COMET bridges the gap between technical planning and community realities. These outcomes demonstrate COMET’s ability to transform energy access planning by aligning technical expertise with the lived experiences and aspirations of local communities, paving the way for scalable and impactful solutions globally.