Keywords

2.1 Introduction

Community resilience is now a concern for many local governments and neighbourhood institutions that provide essential services to people living in cities and settlements. Resilience is the capacity or ability to avoid, withstand, and recover quickly from any unforeseen disruption or shock. Resilience is often used concerning systems, that is, complex assemblages of elements that operate as a whole. When resilience is defined as a characteristic of a system, it emphasises its context and operation. Energy services are pivotal for any community; thus, they are central to community resilience.

A community often refers to a group of people who recognise a shared identity or interest, often associated with a given location (see Chapter 3). In a local context where a group of people call themselves ‘community’, community resilience refers to the ability of such a community to cope with hazardous events or disruptions. For example, communities may respond or reorganise to maintain their integrity, functions, identity, and structure while maintaining capacities for adaptation, learning, and transformation (Cretney, 2014). Community resilience relates to individuals’ expectations and actions, to collective operations and institutions, and to the material conditions they live in. Community Energy (CE) projects may help build community resilience, but they also depend on maintaining community integrity; thus, community energy and community resilience are closely interlinked.

In Community Energy Systems (CES), resilience relates to both the physical aspects of energy provision and the socio-economic and political aspects of the constitution of communities. The capacity of CESs to advance community resilience depends on the material and infrastructural conditions of the system and whether they can endure unpredictable events such as a sudden surge in demand, unexpected meteorological events, or major system failures. However, that capacity also depends on the community’s characteristics, including the economic and social capital of the people in the community, the institutions that regulate it, and the human reaction to the events that test the system. Physical systems alone cannot endure changes without mobilising human adaptive capacities to deal with those changes.

Another challenge relates to the fact that the degree of participation of communities in community energy projects varies depending on the design of the project and the different stages of project implementation. Community involvement in the planning, installation, and operation phases of a community energy project builds the community's economic, social, physical, and human capital to cope with any risks or disruptions. The development of institutions and energy management practices in community energy projects also enables the community to manage the system during unforeseen events. For example, constructing a community-owned solar microgrid may bring the community together to develop a wide range of community-based projects, build a structure to facilitate leadership, and enable learning about energy infrastructures so that people can react appropriately when they fail. In summary, community energy develops community resilience through the physical construction of infrastructures, the development of management institutions at the community level (which help to maintain the community’s identity and structure), and the collective capacity to develop adaptive reactions to unforeseen events.

Resilience is crucial in locations prone to natural hazards like earthquakes, cyclones, or wildfires. With the continuous rise in global emissions and climate change, such hazards are becoming more frequent across risk-prone regions. Every year, millions of people are displaced or affected by events whose increase in frequency and severity can be linked to climate change. Many of these events impact people’s lives directly by destroying life-saving infrastructures. They also have cascading impacts which extend over larger regions, for example, when flooding causes a large-scale blackout. For instance, in 2019, cyclone Idai severely affected parts of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, causing strong winds and flooding that killed 1,593 people and destroyed over 100,000 homes. Idai also had an extended impact through the damages to the electricity network and the subsequent cholera epidemics, with 3 million people eventually impacted (Disasters Emergency Committee, 2019). In events like this, it may take several months to repair the damage and restore the power system to its normal state; thus, community energy provides respite.

Communities living near coastal, hilly, and national borders may face additional governance challenges when exposed to extreme events and socio-political conflicts. Due to their remote geography, they may lack access to national grid infrastructure. The deployment of CES in such off-grid communities provides reliable electricity access and makes them resilient to unforeseen risks or disruptions through evolved community capacity. Communities can make decisions in real life, protecting the energy supply and facilitating access to electricity in cases of shock.

Some of the past studies discussed the notion of resilience across remote and displacement settings. However, few studies have explored community energy systems’ interactions with community resilience against unforeseen disruptions. This chapter discusses the inter-relationship between CES and resilience by explaining how CES contributes to building community’s resilience and how resilience determines the long-term sustainability of a CE project. It describes the core stages of disaster management and the community’s capacity to respond in each step. It further explains the influence of a community’s resilience attributes towards the implementation cycle of a CE project and the core aspects of building a resilient energy community.

2.2 What Is Community Resilience?

Community resilience is the ability of a community to respond to crises while maintaining its integrity and strengthening its capacity to cope. As defined by the Community and Regional Resilience Institute (CARRI), “Community Resilience is the capability to anticipate risk, limit impact and bounce back rapidly through survival, adaptability, evolution and growth in the face of turbulent change” (Community and Regional Resilience Institute, 2013). Norris et al. (2008) define community resilience against unforeseen disruptions with respect to five components: ‘shock’, ‘capacity’, ‘impact’, ‘trajectory’, and ‘outcomes’. Community resilience and its response cycle to an unforeseen event is further represented in Fig. 2.1.

Fig. 2.1
An illustration of community resilience. The components are shock, capacity, impact, trajectory, and outcome. The shock flows to the capacity, which is classified into temporary dysfunction and none with resistance. Temporary dysfunction is classified into long term dysfunction, adjustment, and recovery.

Community resilience to an unforeseen event (adapted from Dabson, 2015)

Full size image

‘Shock’ is a possible unforeseen event, trend, or disruption that disturbs the community. Events may have various causes, from disasters to conflict-related events such as invasions, pandemics, infrastructure breakdowns such as power grid collapse, and economic crises (Coaffee & Lee, 2016). In every case, the severity of the impacts of the shock will depend on the interaction of the shock with the conditions in which it impacts populations and assets. Tierney (2015) classified shocks under three categories—emergencies, disasters, and catastrophes.

Emergencies are classified as first-degree events with comparatively low severity, which could be managed internally without seeking external support. Disasters are defined as events with high severity which cannot be managed by local authorities and require external support like interventions from government or state agencies. For instance, the Nepal earthquake in 2015 was a severe disaster that killed over 9,000 people and displaced millions (To & Subedi, 2019). The Tohoku earthquake and Tsunami in Japan claimed more than 15k casualties while displacing nearly 450k people (National Geographic Society, 2023). Catastrophes are extreme events which affect the lives of masses across the countries and require support from national and international levels. One example of catastrophes is the 2004 Tsunami, which claimed the lives of more than 225k people (World Health Organization, 2023).

The second component, ‘capacity’, refers to the availability of resources and the community’s inherent vulnerability towards a possible threat or unforeseen event. As per IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), “Vulnerability is the propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected. It encompasses a variety of concepts and elements, including sensitivity or susceptibility to harm and lack of capacity to cope and adapt” (IPCC, 2022). In simple terms, vulnerability is the measure of community’s adaptive capacity towards any possible risks. Adaptive capacity is the “ability of systems, institutions, humans and other organisms to adjust to potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities, or to respond to consequences” (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). While risk is defined as the “potential for adverse consequences for human or ecological systems, recognising the diversity of values and objectives associated with such systems” (IPCC, 2022). Further, vulnerability could be classified as physical, economic, and social vulnerabilities. Physical vulnerability is mainly associated with geography and the built environment. For example, communities close to coastal areas and seismic zones are more prone to natural hazards and possess an inherent physical vulnerability towards such events.

Economic vulnerability depends on the economic structure of the community. Communities, where people depend on one single means of livelihood suffer more after disruption than the community with diversified livelihoods. Communities with weak economic structures demonstrate slow recovery after disturbance and become more vulnerable to financial crisis post-disruption. Conversely, social vulnerability is associated with inequalities across the community. A community where all the members do not have equal access to resources is more prone to risks than a community where all the members have equitable access to resources. Social inequality or discrimination, often based on identity variables (gender, age, caste, race, etc.), shapes access to resources and decision-making. Social inequality thus prevents certain sections of society from absorbing the severities resulting from an unforeseen event and limits them from accessing relief/recovery resources during or after a disruption.

The third component, ‘impact’, measures the intensity of shock concerning the community’s inherent capacity to absorb it. If the community shows sufficient resistance to disruption, it will mitigate any adverse effects and continue operating normally. However, if the community fails to resist the severity of disruption due to insufficient capacity, it will result in temporary dysfunction. The disruption will have a severe effect, and daily life in the community may cease temporarily. The impact of the disruption will shape the path or ‘trajectory’ followed by the community in due course. If the community manages to overcome the phase of temporary dysfunction, it may recover and restore the community to pre-shock conditions. Commentators highlight, however, that these disruptions and impacts should be used to address structural conditions of vulnerability and thus return to an improved social and economic situation. The question is, however, not whether the shock may support social change but whether the community can recover from a permanent long-term dysfunction.

Another possibility is the adoption of a trajectory of adjustment, where the community shows the exceptional capacity to adapt against any adversities and reaches a state of ‘new normal’ with enhanced capacity to avoid further disruptions. It could be further described through the resilience recovery loss curve (Fig. 2.2), explaining how an acute disturbance changes the path of a community’s functional capacity at one instance.

Fig. 2.2
A schematic illustrates the evolution of community functional capacity over time, depicting stages such as social and economic gain, business as usual, acute disturbance, social and economic loss, response, recovery, and additional losses for less resilient communities.

Resilience recovery loss curve (adapted from White et al., 2014)

Full size image

Figure 2.2 shows that communities with sufficient inherent capacity to resist the shock follow path B; after experiencing some social and economic loss, they recover to their original state. However, less resilient communities follow path C, where they experience additional socio-economic losses and recover to a capacity lower than the pre-shock level. On the other hand, more resilient communities follow path A, where after experiencing some social and economic loss, they recover to a capacity higher than the pre-shock level. Such communities return to a ‘new normal’ while adapting towards any adversities with enhanced capacity to avoid any further disruptions.

2.3 Assessing Community Resilience

The resilience of a community can be assessed based on the resources or assets available within the community and its response towards disruption management phases. There are typically four disruption management phases, ‘Preparation’, ‘Absorption’, ‘Recovery’, and ‘Adaptation’, when responding to an unforeseen event (Fig. 2.3). ‘Preparation’ refers to planning any pre-disruption activity or action to protect any loss of life and property during disruption. It includes predicting adverse events, training residents for emergency response, developing backup capacity, and other proactive tasks (Mayunga & Peacock, 2010). One possible example of preparedness could be creating an alternative water channel for a micro-hydro-based CE project to manage the generation crisis in the event of discontinuity in the water supply due to any natural obstruction like a landslide.

Fig. 2.3
An illustration of social capital, economic capital, physical capital, and human capital includes preparation, absorption, recovery, and adaptation.

(Source Author’s own)

Disruption management phases and community resilience

Full size image

‘Absorption’ is the phase to reduce the impact of disruption while making critical services functional during an unforeseen event. For instance, disconnecting some commercial shops and businesses to manage power scarcity if a cyclone hits a solar-based CE project while maintaining continuous supply for essential services and domestic consumers. ‘Recovery’ refers to taking actions to restore the community’s functions by keeping all the assets, services, and stakeholders functional to the same level as it was in the pre-disruption state. It includes recovering any loss to machinery and workforce by repairing or replacing faulty equipment and training new operators in case of damage to a typical CE project (Oloruntoba et al., 2018).

‘Adaptation’ means learning from previous events and introducing changes in the original structure to mitigate further hazards with enhanced resiliency. It implies analysing the cause of failure or damage, upgrading machinery or tools, and designing adaptive policies and frameworks to reduce and possibly avoid any damage from further disruptions (Kuhlicke et al., 2023).

Conversely, community assets or capital can be broadly classified as Social, Economic, Physical, and Human capital. ‘Social capital’ measures the community’s connectedness, trust, and cooperation among members to facilitate collective action during disruption. It depends on the social structure, norms, and bonds among the people to utilise their network of friends and relatives in their time of need. The community’s social capital proved to be instrumental in locating the resources within and outside the community and making quick decisions in times of crisis (International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies, 2014).

‘Economic capital’ is the availability of financial resources and the strength of the local economy. Financial resources like disaster recovery funds, insurance, access to credit, and state transfers are some features of sound economic capital. Also, diverse income streams will likely facilitate quick recovery after disruption for community members. ‘Physical capital’ is the availability of natural and human-made resources (roads, canals, power systems, internet, hospitals, schools, and other public infrastructure). The availability of these resources plays a vital role in the community’s capacity to respond in each disaster management phase. Access to natural resources, including sun, wind, water, and biomass, may play a role as significant as access to physical capital (International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies, 2004).

‘Human capital’ is the workforce's ability that enables a community to quickly recover from an economic crisis by producing goods and services. It is related to the education and health of the labour force in a typical community. Education of the labour force implies a level of awareness, skills, and training of the working population, which makes a community self-reliant to devise solutions and strategies to overcome disruption. The health of the labour force is equally essential, as the unhealthy working population cannot efficiently utilise other forms of community capital (Peacock et al., 2010).

A community’s capacity in the form of social, economic, human, and physical capital measures a community’s resilience towards an unforeseen event or disruption and the degree to which the community can prepare by anticipating potential risks or disruptions and adopting measures to minimise the severity from a potential disruption (Fig. 2.3).

2.4 How Do Community Energy Systems Contribute to Building Community Resilience?

Since community energy initiatives involve local community participation in one or more of the project implementation phases, deploying a CES develops community resilience across multiple dimensions. Implementing a CE project involves three core stages—conceptualisation or planning, installation, and operation. The involvement of the local community in one or all of the stages contributes to building the community’s capacity in the form of the community's social, economic, physical, and human capital. Deploying CE projects builds the community’s capital and develops awareness of using community assets to respond to unforeseen events. Figure 2.4 represents how an energy-poor community lacking reliable and sustainable energy sources was transformed into a new socio-economic capacity after the deployment of a CE project. It explains how the CE project implementation cycle involves the community’s shared vision of innovation, need assessment, awareness, and motivation.

Fig. 2.4
An illustration depicts the transformation of a community's socio-economic structure, transitioning from its original state to involvement in a community-based energy project, which then leads to the development of a new and adapted socio-economic structure. The project implementation involves ongoing problem-solving, fostering a shared vision, building local alliances, and participative implementation processes.

Community transformation through a CE project (adapted from Ortiz et al., 2012)

Full size image

It further describes the formation of local alliances among community members for capacity building and developing problem-solving and learning attitudes. All these traits contribute to building the community's capital and make it resilient to respond against any disruptions. For instance, planning and installing a CE project develops human capital as the community becomes involved in technical learning and training activities. This specialised knowledge and approach for planning a socio-technical project while considering multi-dimensional factors build the community’s capacity to devise strategies to prepare for an emergency.

The management of a CE project is usually performed by an institutional arrangement that operates as an ‘Energy Committee’, formed by elected members of the community. Members of energy committees are generally responsible for setting tariffs, fixing consumption, planning, maintenance, and upgrading. Forming these energy committees and volunteering groups helps build social capital by developing traits of connectedness, cooperation, and local decision-making, further supporting all the phases of disruption management.

Deploying a CE project builds the community’s physical capital by establishing electricity infrastructure and enabling communication facilities. These assets are believed to be the lifelines while recovering from an unforeseen event. Also, establishing a CE project generates employment opportunities, facilitates local businesses, and contributes to building the community's economic capital and making it resilient to recover from any financial crisis.

The community resilience aspects developed by the formation of community capital during the deployment of a CE project contribute to different phases of a CE project lifecycle. For instance, the social and human capital developed during the planning of a CE project will, in turn, contribute to the project's installation and operation, as shown in Fig. 2.5. Similarly, physical and economic capital developed during the installation and operation of a project will contribute to the upgrade phase. It implies that the community’s capacity developed through each project implementation phase contributes to subsequent development. In other words, attributes of resilience evolved during various project implementation phases contribute to the efficient planning and execution of a CE project, making it sustainable in the long run.

Fig. 2.5
An illustration of the community energy project lifecycle encompasses social capital, physical capital, human capital, and economic capital, spanning conceptualization, installation, operation, and upgradation phases.

(Source Author’s own)

CE project lifecycle and community resilience

Full size image

2.4.1 The Case of Bondo Micro-Hydro Community Energy System, Malawi

Bondo is a small village in the Mulanje district in the southern part of Malawi. Mulanje is a mountainous region with several hills and perennial water streams. It is home to Mount Mulanje, the highest mountain peak in Malawi. Village Bondo in Mulanje was not electrified through the national grid due to Malawi's lack of electrification infrastructure. With its hilly terrain and remote geography, it was hard to realise the extension of the grid in the near future by residents of Bondo. Thus, a local conservation body, Mulanje Mountain Conservation Trust (MMCT), took the initiative to develop a micro-hydro-based CE project by utilising natural perennial streams of water for the people of Bondo. With the help of funding available through some international organisations and local community support, MMCT started the installation of Bondo-1 micro-hydro powerhouse in 2012 and established a mini-grid to extend electricity connections to the villagers. Later, Mulanje Energy Generation Agency (MEGA) was established in 2014, wholly owned by MMCT. MEGA is a social enterprise and Malawi’s first licensed Independent Power Producer. It was set for sustainable operation and expansion of the Bondo micro-hydro scheme. MEGA installed Bondo-2 and Bondo-3 powerhouses and synchronised the three powerhouses to feed power in one mini-grid. Presently, three powerhouses generate ~268 kW and provide electricity to more than 2000 households, along with some businesses, schools, and charities.

The Bondo community micro-hydro system could be an excellent example of how the community’s capacity has evolved during the CE project implementation phases. Deployment of the Bondo-1 powerhouse developed the community’s social and human capital as local people were involved during planning and installation. Some were trained and acquired essential skills to carry out routine maintenance. The deployment of a powerhouse strengthened the social fabric among community members, and establishing an energy committee enabled decision-making capability among members. Access to electricity for businesses and commercial establishments developed economic capital. This evolved community capacity helped them to go beyond Bondo-1, and they planned to expand their facility by establishing two more powerhouses and extending their distribution network for broader coverage. Interestingly, the community’s capacity is continuously evolving during all these developments, and now they are planning to establish one larger powerhouse to cater for more households and industrial customers.

The community’s capacity evolved during all these implementation phases, which led to the subsequent development of more powerhouses or infrastructure and made it resilient against unforeseen events. During the development of the Bondo mini-grid over the last few years, the community encountered many unexpected disruptions and barriers which could be a possible threat to the seamless operation of the mini-grid. For instance, during the establishment of Bondo-2, there was an incident of severe flooding which destroyed the under-construction building of the powerhouse and claimed the lives of two security persons guarding the powerhouse. However, this disastrous event didn’t stop them, and the community’s evolved resilience enabled them to realise their plan of establishing the Bondo-2 powerhouse again successfully. Besides, there were reported to be a few socio-political disruptions when some people from nearby villages approached Bondo community members and provoked them to demand compensation for placing electricity poles in front of their houses. However, these incidents were handled diligently by energy committee members as community mobilisation happened during project planning, strengthening the social bond and community’s resilience to overcome these issues.

2.5 Building Resilient Community Energy Systems

Realising resilient community energy systems provides reliable energy sources to underserved and vulnerable communities and develops local autonomy by reducing their dependency on public infrastructure. For instance, cyclone Ana 2022 in Malawi displaced more than 190,000 people and severely impacted the country’s largest hydropower generation facility, which supplies nearly one-third of the country’s electricity demand (Department of Disaster Management Affairs, 2022). It took several months to restore the system to its original working condition, and consumers connected to the national grid suffered frequent blackouts and power cuts during that period. However, communities powered through decentralised and community energy-based power generation systems were least affected during that period as they were not dependent on a single electricity utility (national grid) for their power consumption. Also, not all the regions were severely impacted by the cyclone; some regions were marked safe due to their geography. However, people residing in safe regions also had to go through power disruption issues due to instability in the national grid infrastructure. In such events, repairing the damage and restoring the large-scale public infrastructure to its original state may take several months or years. However, restoring a small-scale community energy project is much easier and quicker in case of unforeseen events. Thus, community energy systems induce resilience through their decentralised structure and autonomy.

A resilient community energy system can be developed based on three core aspects—energy system design, community involvement, and governance (Fig. 2.6). These three pillars form a solid foundation to realise a resilient and sustainable CE project and play an essential role in all project implementation and operation phases. Energy system design is a core aspect of strengthening physical or infrastructural capacity to make the energy system resilient against unpredictable events or hazards. Community involvement and governance are the aspects of developing community resilience by supporting the community’s inherent capital to cope with unforeseen events or disruptions. These aspects are closely related to previous sections describing the contribution of CES in building community resilience and the role of community resilience in defining the long-term sustainability of a project. The three pillars of building a resilient community energy system are described below.

Fig. 2.6
An illustration of resilient energy communities includes aspects such as energy system design, governance structures, and community involvement, highlighting the integral components of their resilience.

(Source Author’s own)

Core components of resilient community energy system

Full size image

2.5.1 Energy System Design

It mainly concerns the system's technical design, like the type of technology used, equipment class, and other technological standards for developing an energy system. The energy system design plays a significant role in determining the resilience of the overall system. A system installed with robust, efficient, and fault-tolerant devices is believed to be more resilient towards sudden disruptions. It means technological innovations should be introduced in energy systems design for their optimised operation and to make them effective and efficient against unforeseen disruptions.

Moreover, energy systems with redundant critical equipment and diverse energy sources are more resilient than those fed by a single source. For example, a hybrid solar-micro-hydro-based CES is perceived to be more resilient than a sole micro-hydro-based CES, where solar can substitute the shortcomings in the micro-hydro system in case of any disruption. Similarly, a micro-hydro CES with a redundant water channel is more resilient than a single channel system because there will be an alternative path for water to hit the turbine in case of any damage to the channel through landslides or other hazards.

However, adding such redundancies and diversity increases the overall cost of the system. Therefore, a proper assessment of risks needs to be carried out while planning the technical design of the system to identify the critical points where adding redundancy appeared to be worthwhile for the safe and sustainable operation of the system.

2.5.2 Community Involvement

Community participation is the second core aspect of realising a resilient CES. Involving the community in one or all phases of project implementation builds the community's overall resilience towards any unforeseen events. Integration of users and making them active stakeholders in the planning, installation, and operation of an energy system contributes to developing the community capital. Active participation in the community includes people’s contributions in terms of money, workforce, or any other assets. It induces a sense of ownership among the people right from the project inception stage, motivating them to give their best to safeguard the system from disruptions.

There exist various business models for realising a CES. Most of the CES involves active community participation during the operation phase and limited participation during planning and installation. Such projects are often funded by external organisations and agencies that provide design and installation grants. Sometimes, when these projects encountered any unforeseen disruption during the operational phase, they failed to cope with those events due to their limited knowledge and ability to handle them. On the other hand, projects involving active community participation in all three phases of project implementation have demonstrated enhanced capacity to cope with any unforeseen disruptions on their own.

2.5.3 Governance

Effective governance is one of the significant aspects in the lifecycle of a sustainable CES. Governance includes making policies, laws, and schemes for promoting CES at the grassroots level. More often, it is referred to as an enabling environment facilitating the smooth implementation of new projects and safeguarding the sustainable operation of existing projects. Governance exists at three levels—community, regional, and national. At the elementary level, an energy committee formed to maintain and operate the CES is responsible for community-level governance. The energy committee is the first-hand body in charge of monitoring, maintaining, and using the CES successfully and providing updates to the local or regional governance bodies about the system's health.

Local or regional governance is performed by different institutions such as state or county governments, statutory agencies, or regional development bodies. These institutions are responsible for framing regional policies and schemes supporting CES at the ground level. They provide support by engaging stakeholders like private energy companies, development organisations, and public utilities. Local governing institutions facilitate energy committees to locate funding opportunities for grants, loans, and public investments. Their primary role is to monitor the CES in their jurisdiction and safeguard users’ interests by resolving any conflicts among users, developers, or other stakeholders. They act like an intermediary institution for implementing any national-level plan and are also responsible for providing approvals and permissions to project developers.

National-level governing agencies or ministries are responsible for rolling out any country-level policy or scheme supporting the deployment of these projects. They facilitate project developers by introducing national-level plans offering subsidies, loans, tax exemptions, and other regulatory advantages. Additionally, they monitor the status of these projects concerning their national and international agenda of providing sustainable and affordable energy access to all. They even coordinate with international development agencies to secure financial aid or long-term sustainable development credits. To realise a resilient and sustainable CES, there needs to be strong coordination among all the institutions to deliver all these international, national, and regional benefits. Often, improper design and conflict between national and regional policies limit beneficiaries from utilising the intended support. Therefore, effective integration and strong coordination among governing bodies play a major role in realising a resilient and sustainable CES.

These core aspects of realising a resilient community energy system must be incorporated in each stage of CE project implementation, as shown in Fig. 2.6. For instance, when robust and redundant ‘energy system design’ is included right from the conceptualisation stage, it results in the development of resilient infrastructure which could withstand possible disruptions. Similarly, when aspects of ‘community involvement’ and ‘governance’ are considered during the CE project's installation and operation, it enhances the community’s social and human capital, eventually contributing to the community’s resilience with respect to any unforeseen event or disruption. Thus, incorporating these core aspects makes the energy system resilient and contributes to developing community’s resilience.

2.6 Conclusion

The concept of resilience holds a greater significance concerning communities that are poor in terms of infrastructure or physical capital and highly prone to natural and socio-political disruptions due to their geographies. Every year, millions of people are displaced or affected in other ways due to unforeseen natural events or socio-political conflicts. Such incidents destroy the physical infrastructure and severely damage the community’s capital. Undoubtedly, it takes so much time and resources to rebuild the damaged infrastructure and several years to restore the community’s capacity in the form of social, economic, and human capital. Handling such events through top-down relief and humanitarian approaches provides short-term assistance. However, a long-term solution requires imbibing the aspects of resilience at the ground level within the community. As resilience of a community is the measure of its social, economic, human, and physical capital, strengthening the community’s capital is the way to achieve community resilience. A resilient community is one which efficiently utilises its inherent capital during various phases of disaster management.

Community energy systems shares a strong bond with community resilience. Each phase of a CE project implementation contributes to building one or more forms of community’s capital. The evolved community’s capital is the measure of its resilience against any unforeseen event or disruption. Community energy is such a unique initiative which not only provides clean, reliable, and last-mile energy access to energy-deprived communities but also strengthens the aspects of community resilience, preparing them to cope with unforeseen events. Building resilient community energy systems across underserved and vulnerable communities accomplishes the objectives of SDG-7 (affordable and clean energy) and contributes to SDG-11 (sustainable cities and communities). A resilient community energy system could be realised based on the aspects of ‘energy system design’, ‘community involvement’, and ‘governance’. Considering these core aspects will deliver a resilient and sustainable energy system and a resilient community. The unique approach of analysing the relationship between CES and community resilience opens the gate for further researchers to investigate possible ways through which community resilience could be strengthened through CES implementation. The novel framework to realise resilient CES based on three core dimensions lays the foundation for future research to develop guidelines for the efficient delivery of such systems.