StrategiesApplied forRenewable Energy Source Adoption in Indigenous Communities of La Guajira, Colombia

This study presents the results of the evaluation of some strategies to promote adoption of technologies that enable the use of renewable energy sources (RES) in Wayuu indigenous communities located in La Guajira, Colombia. We used an agent-based model representing the collective decision process within the communities, where three different types of agents are used to represent the members of the communities and their influence on the process of decision making. This process involves several discussions and meetings, using text to speech, lectures and training, and visits to other projects as strategies. Subsequently, using the model, a factorial experiment was conducted to compare the impact of various proposed and implemented strategies. The impact of the study measured the number of members willing to adopt new technologies in the community. In this sense, the best results with respect to the dissemination and adoption of RES in the communities under study were obtained by combining the strategies of text to speech and training lectures. Keywords—Agent-Based Simulation, Wayuu, Renewable Energy, Diffusion Strategies, Indigenous Communities.

control its own actions, based on their perceptions of the environment" [5].The main properties of agent-based simulationare set out below [5]:  They are autonomous (can operate without direct human control or other agents).
 They are interactive (with social skills, interacting with their environment and/or other agents) and have local knowledge (they receive only part of their immediate environment).  With subjective perception, they have limited rationality.
 They are reactive (they perceive their environment and respond accordingly) and proactive (they can take the initiative based on objective behaviour).  In addition, theyhave the potential to be programmed to have adaptation, learning, sophisticated planning and language (computer). Literature shows various diffusion models, such as those presented in [6], where a model that determinedthe probability of purchasing a new article at time T was related to the number of previous buyers. In recent years, some authors have used it in the study of diffusion of energy innovations, as presented in [7]. The author suggestedan agent-based simulation model, which integrates a single-choice behaviour, and impact from the social network to which the person belongs, finding that this last can performan important task in diffusion acceleration.
In [8],the authorsdeveloped an agent-based model that simulates the diffusion process of alternative fuels on the market. This model consideredeconomic and social aspects in the decision process and feedback mechanisms. Its main conclusion was that the adoption of fuel differences is mainly due to the price, but other factors play an important role if the prices are similar. Similarly, in [9], the authorspresented an agent-based simulation model aimed at identifying possible government interventions to improve the diffusion of heating household technology based on wood pellets. They concluded that financial support and operational reliability should be applied simultaneously to accomplish a successful diffusion of the studied technology.
In [10], the researchersproposed an agent-based simulation model for the diffuse study of a new heating and micro-cogeneration technology regarding current alternatives. Within the household's decision-making process, the authors included economical, technological and social aspects, which allowed the suggested model to properly describe the studied reality.This study concluded that the commercial diffusion of new technology is significantly affected by fuel, natural gas and electrical energy prices, which must be considered when designing incentive policies. In [11], the authors exposed a hybrid agent-based simulation model, which allows one to evaluate the incentive and regulation effectiveness that promote photovoltaic solar energy systemdiffusion. The developed model integrates system dynamics with agent-based simulation to promote a more realistic simulated environment.
In addition to the documents found in literature related to energy innovation diffusion, different types of innovation studies have been conducted, such as environmental innovations [12], which proposed a simulation model of technology diffusion for domestic water saving; new products [13]- [17];and computer science innovations [18], [19]. However, asearch showed a lack of studies related to the diffusion of renewable energy sources in indigenous communities. In many countries, the zones where indigenous communities reside have great energy potential for electricity generation, making it necessary to conduct studies such as the one described in the present article, which allow us to understand the phenomena and contribute to the development of this type of energy sources.

A. Sample
In the organizational characterization of the indigenous population living in the Upper Guajira, we considered a total of 1603 households in the Uribía indigenous communities, according to the population [20]. Then, we applied the probabilistic sampling method, given that all the elements (households) have the same possibility for being selected in the sample, where the probability of each population subject starts from 50%.
The sample was calculated using (1), where n is the sample; N is the total population, equal to 1603 households located in the Upper Guajira;z is the trust level, equal to 90%, corresponding to 1.65 standard deviations; p is the expected proportion, 50%, equal to 0.5 for being chosen or not. q= 1 -P, (1 -0.5 = 0.5), and e is the error, equal to 10%. With the values shown, we obtained a sample of 65 households. * * * 1 * * 1 Fig. 1 showsthe Upper Guajiraarea and the route at the zone where the study was conducted.This route was considered because it is in the zone where most of the Wayuu populationlives in the Upper Guajira.  Fig. 2 shows the collective decision process of the agents that may participate in the decision process of communities in the Upper Guajira. The agents included in this model are traditional authorities (red), advisors (blue), leader convinced of the virtues oftechnology (green) and the general population (yellow). In the model, all the agents that form the respective ranches are presented, including meeting places, generally an outdoor salon without walls and with palm leaf ceilings (identified in the model bya white square in the centre).

C. Agent Decision Rules
An important aspect of the model is that it represents the communication process between the members of the ranches in general terms, considering important cultural aspects such as traditional roots, family membership and territorial entrenchment. These elements determine the decision and instruction rules that govern agent behaviour and predominantly mark the Wayuu collective responses [2]. This causes new community members to adopt the elders' principles and knowledge.

D. Param
All m identifica 14days to We also Finally, t the use o E. Decis The de apply thi general s counsello is the pro

F. Technology-adopting Provision Strategies
We selected three strategies: text to speech (TS), lectures and training (LT) and visitsto other projects by the indigenous population (VP). Inthe text-to-speech case, we proposed to convince acommunity member (preferably an advisor), allowinghim/her to persuade the rest of the community toadopt the technology. In this strategy, it is assumedthat the advisor plays the role of opinion leaderin the community. Regarding the lectures and trainingstrategy for the indigenous population, these will be conductedfrequently by the experts in topics relatedto RES. Likewise, the visits to other projectswill allow the indigenous people to learn about the experiences of similarimplemented projects in other communities. For the evaluationof the suggested strategies to promote RES adoption, an agent-basedsimulation model was designed using NetLogo [21]. We asked some experts on population culture, a master in indigenous languages involved in training and research of Wayuu ethnicity and a member of each community to verify the model considered in this research.Similarly, the suggested model was presented toseveral leaders of each community, who hold the title of 'pütche'ejachi'(orators) and are experts in resolving conflicts.

G. Sensitivity Analysis
A sensitivity analysis can be conducted considering various strategiesand decision variables.For example, if the TS and LT strategies are disabled from the model, anagreement is not achieved among all the members of thecommunity (i.e., not all become green). Likewise,if these two strategies are enabled and theVP strategy is disabled, the community is convinced, a result that we failto obtain if the term is reduced from 14 to 6days between the start of the process and the final meeting.
This last section of the analysisallows us to conclude that a week is enoughtime to achieve all community members'agreementthrough the LT and TSstrategies. Furthermore, a model to conduct a factorialexperiment was also used in [22],allowing the authors to evaluate the suggested strategies' performancebased on the number of adopting members.The experiment analysis was developed through avariance analysis, whose results are shown in the followingsection. Table I shows the variance analysis according to the strategy implemented to adopt technologies in the studied indigenous population. This table shows that the P-values of all strategies and their combinations are less than 0.05, which indicates they have relevant statistical effects over the adopting population obtained in the simulation. For development of the experiment, the lowerlevel (-1.0) of each of the strategies was consideredthe absence of the strategy, and the higher level (1.0) wasconsidered an intense implementation of thecorresponding strategy.Regarding the case-by-case evaluated strategies, Fig. 4 shows the training lecture effectiveness,achieving a mean of 150 adopting members in largeWayuu communities with 151 or more members. IV. CONCLUSION This paper presented the results of the evaluation of some strategies to promote the adoption of renewable energy technologies in the Wayuu indigenous communities located in the Department of La Guajira, Colombia. The studyshowed that lecture training andtext-to-speech strategies to promote the adoption of RES obtained the best results,with adopting means of 150 and 136, respectively.Furthermore, the combination of thetext-to-speech and lecture training strategiesachieved a mean of 241 adopting members, which represented better results for the promotion of RES technologies in this indigenous population. This finding could beobtainedbecausethe Wayuu are a group with a dominant verbal tradition,and oral communication is fast and effective in these communities. Theaforementioned implies that to improve the achievedresults, using combined strategiesbased on verbal communication is recommended.Finally,it is important to point out that this research didnot consider aspects such as promotion strategy cost, communication between communitiesor other relations between the Wayuu population and the rest ofthe indigenous organisation in the country.