Campus: “lab” and “window” for Distributed Renewable Energy applied as Sustainable Product-Service System

This paper intends to promote the hypothesis to consider the University Campus as win-win locus for the design, implementation and dissemination of Distributed Renewable Energy (DRE), seen as a key leverage for a sustainable development. In particular, by applying to them a Sustainable Product-Service System (S.PSS) offer model, a promising solution applicable even to low and middle-income contexts. A presentation, description and justification of the following new research knowledge achievements, it is given at the beginning: the design and implementation of S.PSS applied to DRE is a win-win strategy to diffuse Sustainable Energy for All. This is the main knowledge-based outcomes of the LeNSes, the Learning Network on Sustainable energy system EU funded project (Edulink programme II). It is then described and proposed the research hypothesis of making University Campuses as community “labs” and “windows” to design, implement and promote radical innovation for sustainability, i.e. Distributed Renewable Energy systems, seen as a paradigm shift form centralised and fossil fuel-based energy plants and a key leverage for the transition towards a sustainable for all society. In fact, the paper proposes that (design) Higher Education Institution may have a challenging role to play in a transition towards a Sustainable Energy for All society, by going further the diffusion of System Design for Sustainable Energy for All knowledge-base and know-how (in fact the main aim of the LeNses project), towards a new role of university campuses as optimum “lab” for socio-technical innovations test as well as “windows”, i.e. show-cases for the design, testing and dissemination of sustainable energy for all solutions. The paper aims at opening a debate on the reinforcement and amplification of the existing LeNS network, in the sense of real design, prototyping and testing of DRE&S.PSS-based pilot projects within the university’s campus.