Sustainable Product-Service System Design applied to Distributed Renewable Energy fostering the goal of sustainable energy for all

Abstract

Energy is a fundamental imperative to the quest for sustainable development. The current challenge is to provide sustainable energy solutions for all, whilst concomitantly increasing the access to energy and improving its efficiency. Within this perspective, design Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) need to be able to equip design students with a broad knowledge base, as well as effective methods and tools so that a new generation of designers (and design educators) can play an active role in the development and diffusion of sustainable energy systems. This is the ambition of the Learning Network on Sustainable Energy Systems (LeNSes) project - an African-European multi-polar network for curricula development on Product-Service System (S.PSS) Design for Sustainability applied to Distributed Renewable Energy (DRE). The research working hypothesis of the LeNSes project is that S.PSS could be effectively applied to DRE, representing a promising opportunity to couple several benefits: economical, environmental, and socio-ethical ones.