In Chapter 15, Foresight for Chile’s energy transition—unleashing societal transformations, Joni Karjalainen, Noora Vähäkari, and Sirkka Heinonen assume a future-oriented, long-term, and holistic view to examine the prospects of an energy transition into a fully renewable energy system. The book chapter focuses on Chile, which has set ambitious renewable energy targets and adopted growing shares of solar energy in the 2010s. 

The authors first explain how foresight can be used to explore a transition into a renewable energy system. Scenarios are a commonly used foresight tool, and as compelling and evidence-based narratives they can be used to explore long-term transitions. In scenariomaking, there are growing calls to move beyond extrapolating from past or present trends and instead use transition, backcasting, and participatory approaches to find sustainable energy solutions. The authors use radical and discontinuous sociocultural scenarios that describe changes in the energy landscape, with a semi-backcasting approach. The chapter demonstrates how a sociocultural approach to scenario building can account for the broad economic and political context of transitions. The results from a futures workshop, organized in Santiago de Chile with Chilean innovation, foresight and technology experts, are presented.

The scenarios were tested and discussed in Chile to explore a transition into a renewable energy system. Scenario-testing integrates stakeholder views and recognizes sociocultural factors, and the identified opportunities and challenges in Chile are further discussed. 

The chapter’s main contribution is to conceptualize transitions beyond a simplistic, managerialistic view. Instead, a futuresoriented and transformative approach is promoted for unleashing the potential innovation benefits embedded in energy transitions.