Faced with a scenario of growing concern about environmental issues, the world's energy sector has been going through a period of profound technological, socio-cultural, political and economic change, known as energy transition. The main aim of this process is to gradually reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in order to contain the advance of global warming. In this sense, since the commitment to reduce GHG emissions, which began with the Kyoto Protocol, in 1997, many countries have been investing in the expansion of renewable and low-carbon energy sources and vectors and in the development and consolidation of clean technologies. At the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP), held in Paris in 2016, various measures in this direction were outlined and approved by the 195 countries present.
In the energy sector, actions to reduce the effects of climate change have been mainly focused on decarbonization. In the generation segment, these measures are usually associated with targets to increase the share of renewable and intermittent sources in the electricity matrix and to encourage the development of low-carbon technologies. Given this context, the Brazilian energy matrix stands out due to its large share of renewable energies and extensive transmission network, which guarantees the complementarity of energy generation, system reliability and a dynamic balance between supply and demand. According to EPE (2022a), in 2022 the share of renewable energy was 44.7% of the national energy supply and 78.1% of the electricity supply.
In this context, the Amazon region stands out due to its great availability of energy resources not yet explored, making it one of the main frontiers for the expansion of the Brazilian electricity sector. Composed of nine Brazilian states, around 28 million people currently live in the Legal Amazon, concentrated mainly in the states of Amazonas, Pará, Maranhão, Rondônia and Mato Grosso (EPE, 2022b). Most of the locations in the Amazon region are not connected to the interconnected transmission system and have their own service system, called Isolated Systems (IS). As well as being expensive to generate, based on thermal generation using diesel oil, the IS supply is characterized by many interruptions. Thus, despite its great potential for generating renewable and clean energy, the demand for electricity in the IS of the Amazon Region is mainly supplied by fossil fuels.
This highlights the strategic and priority nature of the Amazon Region in the energy transition process, given that the region concentrates a large part of the Brazilian population that still has no access to electricity. In addition, the region is characterized by the presence of social groups with different ethnic-cultural identities and complex socio-environmental areas, highlighting the importance of an inclusive and just transition process.
The main objective of this article is to analyse how the energy transition process in the Amazon Region has been treated and recognized by the main stakeholders. By surveying scientific production, identifying the main stakeholders and their different discourses, it will be possible to understand the direction of actions and their materialization in the territory.
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