Focus on community energy and infrastructure resilience

Abstract This focus issue on community energy and infrastructure resilience compiles six contribution that seek to put into context projects that aim to put people at the core of energy development. The promises of community energy are multifold, from facilitating the democratization of energy systems to allowing for the development of decentralized and off-grid networks, which may accelerate the adoption of renewables. However, community energy also faces challenges. In this case, the special issue focused on challenges related to infrastructure resilience, whether they are linked to building resilience in community energy projects or to the contributions that community energy projects make to advance sustainability transitions. This focus issue makes five key thematic contributions: the importance of community engagement in building resilience, analytical tools to understand the multi-dimensional nature of infrastructure resilience, the need to incorporate place-based concerns into policy, the development of tools to evaluate different aspects of resilience, and the explicit consideration of gender equality and social inclusion to facilitate project sustainability.