OM Grand Challenges: SDG 7 - Managing Decentralized Assets and Actors for the Clean Energy Transition

Abstract

Achieving SDG 7 requires closing persistent energy access gaps while simultaneously scaling renewable generation and reliably integrating intermittent supply into electricity systems. In 2024, 655 million people remain without access to electricity, and about 2 billion still rely on polluting cooking fuels. Simultaneously, clean energy technologies are increasingly cost-competitive and deployment is accelerating. Still, adoption and scaling remain constrained by affordability, supply-chain and infrastructure bottlenecks, coordination failures among decentralized actors, financing, and institutional frictions. We highlight the grand challenges behind these operational frictions and discuss how the operations management research community can contribute to the progress towards SDG 7 targets.