SEE researchers travel to Suriname for capacity building and collaboration

Last fall, researchers from the School of Sustainable Energy Engineering (SEE) embarked on a trip to Suriname for a capacity building event in collaboration with Anton de Kom University and the Energy Agency of Suriname. 

In partnership with Canadian non-governmental organization (NGO), Catalyste+, SFU’s ∆E+ Research Group have worked alongside various countries worldwide to advance energy system planning. Having recently worked with Catalyste+ on collaborations with researchers in Kenya and Guyana, principal investigator and SEE professor Taco Niet, together with SEE PhD student Junoh Bede participated in a series of workshops to build local capacity in energy system planning and modelling. The joint initiative promotes global sustainable development and enables countries to make informed sustainable energy decisions. 

During their visit in November, Niet and Bede introduced local researchers to the Climate, Land-use, Energy and Water Systems (CLEWs) model—a framework used to assess the interconnections among resource systems, evaluating their synergies and trade-offs. As climate change and sustainability move to the forefront, there is a growing need to understand the intricacies of resource interdependencies and their impact on planning and decision-making. By leveraging the CLEWs model, countries can guide policy decisions on long-term energy supply, agriculture, land-use and greenhouse gas emissions. Niet’s ∆E+ Research Group is a global leader in developing CLEWs models and workflows that streamline their in-country deployment, as demonstrated in Suriname.

Hydropower, solar, biomass and biofuels form the core of Suriname’s energy plan, making it sensitive to climate and land use challenges. As a result, it is essential for the country to understand how these systems are interconnected. To support sustainable energy planning, Bede built a CLEWs model workflow that can easily be tailored to any country as part of their PhD research. Bede and Niet then deployed this workflow for Suriname over the course of a seven-day workshop in-country. Having a ready-to-deploy CLEWs model for Suriname allows the Energy Agency to adopt CLEWs as a tool to identify relationship between the climate, land, energy and water systems and how these interconnections impact policy effectiveness. 

While engaging with workshop participants, Niet and Bede were able to pinpoint discrepancies between the CLEWs model and real-world conditions, assess the framework limitations and explore potential solutions. Upon the weeklong program's completion, the participants applied the model to develop policy scenarios, which they presented to ministers and industry representatives at the closing ceremony.

Building on the insights from this collaboration, the local researchers in Suriname will be able to independently apply the CLEWs framework to help support their sustainability efforts in the country.
 

Highlights from the trip