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General Topics
Foresight
Foresight is a structured exploration of possible futures and their implications for decisions made today. In smart grid transitions, it helps participants examine how changes in technology, society and institutions could alter the conditions for grid development. Its value lies in making assumptions and alternatives available for discussion before they become embedded in plans.1)
Foresight explores possible futures, examines assumptions and helps grid actors consider how present choices could work under changing conditions.
Why this matters
Grid decisions can depend on expectations about electricity demand, technology adoption and the organisation of energy services. Foresight provides ways to examine those expectations and consider developments beyond an established planning baseline. ISGAN's long-term planning framework includes strategic intelligence, exploration of alternative futures and stakeholder engagement as inputs to subsequent decisions.2)
The process can also make different interpretations visible. A technology trend may suggest new flexibility opportunities to an operator, new service models to a provider and questions about control to users. An illustrative foresight discussion could examine these interpretations together and ask how they might influence one another. The point is to explore the implications of a possible development before deciding whether, where or how to pursue it.3)
A useful foresight exercise makes it possible to ask which assumptions a strategy depends on, how those assumptions could change and what preparations would remain useful across several possible futures.4)
Its contribution also depends on what happens afterwards. An exercise can generate stimulating scenarios without influencing an actual choice. Connecting the work to a decision, an identifiable group of users and a review process gives the findings a practical route into planning. UNDP's toolkit links exploration of change with implications analysis, visioning, backcasting and testing strategic plans.5)
Shared definitions
Foresight is the systematic exploration of possible futures to inform present choices, strengthen preparedness and expand the range of options considered. This is a working synthesis of the OECD's strategic foresight approach and the Government Office for Science's futures methods. It concerns plausible alternatives and their implications, rather than a claim that one future has been established as correct.6)7)
Different methods contribute different forms of evidence and reflection. The choice depends on the question, the time available and the decisions the work is intended to inform. A short exercise can help identify assumptions, while an extended process may combine scanning, interviews, workshops and modelling. The methods below can be used together without treating them as a mandatory sequence.8)
| Method | Contribution to a foresight exercise |
|---|---|
| Horizon scanning | Identifies emerging developments, signals and possible changes |
| Scenario exploration | Develops contrasting accounts of how future conditions could unfold |
| Visioning | Articulates a desired future and the values it expresses |
| Backcasting | Works backwards from a desired future to examine possible steps towards it |
| Strategy testing | Examines how an option could perform under different future conditions |
The table summarises distinctions used in the UNDP toolkit. In practice, an exercise can move between methods as new questions emerge. A scenario, for example, may reveal a previously overlooked assumption that warrants further scanning or consultation. The appropriate level of detail follows the decision being considered.9)
Perspectives
Actors and stakeholders
Foresight participants bring different experience, priorities and expectations. The process can make this diversity useful by documenting where views converge and where they remain different. ISGAN's framework emphasises participation and transparency about the scope, assumptions and limitations of foresight outputs. Such documentation allows people beyond the workshop to understand how the findings were produced.10)
South Africa: Eastern Cape foresight exercise
UNDP describes a provincial exercise that brought government, communities and other participants into discussion of desired futures and a joint plan of action. The example concerns development planning rather than a specific grid project, but shows how foresight can organise discussion across institutional and community perspectives.11)
For an illustrative grid exercise, participants might consider how household electrification could develop under different housing, service and affordability conditions. The facilitator could ask whose experience informs each assumption and which groups have had limited opportunity to contribute. The resulting account would preserve relevant differences instead of treating attendance at one workshop as evidence of a shared position. This is an application of participatory futures methods, rather than a report of an ISGAN event.12)
Technologies and infrastructure
Foresight can examine emerging technologies together with the conditions of their use. A new device or software capability may develop alongside changes in business models, user practices or institutional responsibilities. Exploring these relationships helps formulate questions for technical analysis. Quantitative modelling can then examine particular assumptions, while the wider foresight process retains developments that are difficult to represent numerically.13)
Singapore: Scenario Planning Plus
The Centre for Strategic Futures combines scenario planning with a wider set of approaches for examining emerging developments and discontinuities. Its framework includes defining the question, environmental scanning, sense-making, developing possible futures, designing strategies and monitoring.14)
Applied to grids, this could mean exploring several conditions for the use of distributed storage before selecting model inputs. One hypothetical future might involve coordinated services provided through aggregators; another might involve more autonomous local operation. The useful comparison would ask what each arrangement implies for data, control and network needs. These are illustrative questions that operationalise the broader futures approach, not predictions of adoption.15)
Institutional structures
Foresight gains practical relevance when organisations connect it to strategic responsibilities. A team needs a way to communicate findings, identify their implications for decisions and revisit them as conditions change. Singapore's approach explicitly includes monitoring alongside strategy development. This places attention on the continuing use of foresight, as well as on the production of scenarios.16)
Brazil: Scenarios for the National Energy Plan 2050
IRENA describes how guiding questions from policymakers shaped the scenario work for Brazil's PNE 2050. Workshops and consultation linked the exploration of future energy conditions with the preparation of a national planning document.17)
A practical arrangement can distinguish between the people who explore alternatives and those who authorise a change in direction. In an illustrative network organisation, a foresight group could identify implications for investment criteria and pass them to a scheduled strategy review. Recording the question, the assumptions and the receiving decision process would make the handover explicit. The example applies the toolkit principle of connecting futures work to policy and strategy development.18)
Distinctions and overlaps
Foresight and forecasting
Forecasting estimates a future outcome using specified information and assumptions. Foresight explores a wider range of possible conditions, including discontinuities. Forecasts can be inputs to that exploration without exhausting the futures that participants consider.19)
Foresight and scenarios
Scenarios are one way of organising thinking about possible futures. Foresight also includes activities such as identifying signals, examining implications and translating insights into strategic options.20)
Foresight and planning
Foresight broadens and examines the conditions under which choices might be made. Planning prepares coordinated options and actions. Their relationship is iterative: planning questions can guide foresight, and foresight findings can prompt a review of planning assumptions.21)
Possible and preferred futures
A possible future is explored for its plausibility and implications. A preferred future expresses aspirations and values. Keeping these purposes distinguishable helps participants discuss both what could happen and what they would like to bring about.22)