Solutions mappings aim to identify, highlight, and understand how people or groups try to solve or deal with the issues they face in their territories, or to redirect the interests encouraging them and the developed processes. The Renewable Energy Solutions Mapping was focused on the implementation of decentralized and smaller-scale initiatives that can be replicated more easily in different communities, leveraging resources already available in nature. This document outlines the compiled findings by the Co_Lab, the Accelerator Lab of UNDP Argentina.

This document features five stories, and includes other examples that illustrate the type of renewable energy initiatives mapped: i) La Caja Verde (The Green Box), a piece of furniture that stores vegetables and fruits without electricity because it uses the interaction between plants, and between plants and microorganisms, plus some water and sand; ii) Liter of Light Argentina, a global movement that provides light to communities with limited or zero access to electricity using cheap and easily available materials, iii) EcoAndina, an organization that works on a global comprehensive approach to energy consumption, including environmentally contextualized solutions and, through the initiative Pueblos Solares Andinos [Andean Solar Villages], promotes self-sufficient communities, iv) 500 RPM, an organization working with remote communities to build cheap and open patent wind turbines to generate sustainable, affordable, and reliable energy, and last but not least, v) an experience in Los Pinos, in the Balcarce district in the province of Buenos Aires (Argentina), where a biodigester represented a comprehensive solution to a community problem associated to contamination, waste management, and outages that is implemented by academics (from the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA), the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), and the National University of Mar del Plata), the local government, and the community.

Certain patterns emerge from this solutions mapping: the multiple dimensions of energy poverty (health risks, food poverty, the time dimension, and the economic and energetic savings), the prominent role of women, the connection between energy and education, the economic and operational sustainability of projects, the relevance of habits and values during the adaptation (or non-adaptation) process, the use of simple supplies or waste, contextualization, and replicability, based on either the access to technologies or participatory processes. From the analysis, we gain some insights with which it may be interesting to experiment.

The concluding remarks revisit the discussion about the adoption of technologies by participants, recipients, or users, but they also emphasize how important it is to analyze the issue from a different perspective: the adaptability of solutions based on participatory processes that take into account the context of the territories in question.