Atutu powers-up communities to harness their own energy

Atutu is redefining traditional models of energy access and ensuring communities control their own power by tackling systemic energy inequities. As a Bright Spot, they demonstrate how distributed, community-led solutions can create a just and resilient energy future. 

Energy poverty remains one of the most pressing yet overlooked injustices of our time. For many off-grid communities, energy infrastructure is designed without local agency, leaving marginalised communities dependent on unreliable, expensive, or harmful energy sources.  

Atutu emerged as a response to this imbalance in Myanmar, where more than half the population lives off-grid and has been displaced by the ongoing civil war. Founded in 2018, their grassroots design process consults communities to understand their needs, daily habits and even cultural practices to create decentralised energy systems that are sustainable, owned and governed by the people who rely on them. Their approach challenges the status quo by prioritising autonomy, resilience, and long-term equity in energy access. 

Left: Atutu Solar Field Technicians preparing to mount the solar panel to the roof of a community learning center 
Right: Atutu team members raising solar panels to the roof of a hospital before installing the array 

How is Atutu different from more mainstream energy access solutions? 

Conventional energy models often follow a top-down approach: governments and corporations dictate access, pricing, and infrastructure, sidelining the very communities they serve. Atutu disrupts the standard as an ‘enabling technology’ by providing holistic energy access to entire local communities and economies. Instead of focusing solely on technological solutions, energy sovereignty and community needs are central to their model; for instance, decision-making on the design and maintenance of local energy systems lies with the communities. 

Atutu’s core team, including their executive director, also hail from these communities — providing a natural affinity with their lived experiences, cultural considerations to build trust, allowing for long-term success. Atutu has managed to navigate politically unstable regions in Myanmar to ensure solar solutions are provided to Indigenous and internally displaced people (IDP) communities at a subsidised rate. 

"In a world where energy independence is guaranteed, we would be able to source our own electricity. It’s a world where there’s local competition to energy conglomerates so we can ensure high quality and low price. It’s a world where governments cannot cut off electricity to entire regions (such as the case of Myanmar and Gaza) or neglect entire populations (such as the case of Navajo Nation). It’s a world where our energy infrastructure that isn’t vulnerable to foreign or domestic threats because it’s decentralised.”
—Lin Thu Hein, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Atutu
How is Atutu changing the way energy is accessed in Myanmar?  

The energy transition is happening, but without concerted attention to existing inequities, risks and injustices, it may not deliver on its potential for a just transition. Besides renewables, a just energy transition also needs to consider who owns and controls those energy sources.  

Atutu’s work shifts the conversation from energy as a commodity to energy as a tool for self-determination and resilience, providing a blueprint for equity-first energy transitions. Across 372 solar implementations to date, Atutu’s broader goal is to provide a space for shared economic prosperity — boosting businesses by staying open longer, powering greater harvest processing capacity or even providing better necessary healthcare by electrifying hospitals for longer.  

Atutu’s installations also generate 657,000 kilowatt-hours annually, delivering 75 kW of renewable energy 24/7 and offsetting over 460 metric tons of CO₂ emissions each year.  In communities where diesel generators and charcoal stoves contribute to severe indoor air pollution, their clean energy solutions also drastically reduce the risk of lung cancer, asthma, and other respiratory diseases — especially in IDP camps and indigenous villages. 

Image: Atutu staff members taking questions and explaining the residential solar home system to the community members 

What could the future look like if Atutu’s model becomes the norm?    

Imagine a world where energy is no longer about extracting or generating resources but seen as a means of empowerment. In this future, energy grids are no longer centralised monopolies but interconnected, community-driven grid systems. Key community members like farmers are able to work in safer environments, enabling them to focus on financial security. Energy becomes a service or commodity that community actors are enable use as a financial mechanism to train and raise capital for other ventures. 

Instead of energy insecurity dictating economic hardship, communities reinvest surplus energy revenue into schools, healthcare, and infrastructure. Governments would shift from subsidising fossil fuels to supporting local energy cooperatives.  

If scaled, Atutu’s model could become the backbone of a decentralised, regenerative energy economy — one where people especially those who have been historically marginalised own and harness their own power. 

"I would love to see a world where we adopt something like an ‘energy liberation index’ to measure success in energy access work. This would precisely show how much energy access someone has but also indicate the kinds of energy they have access to. What good is having access to energy if someone can turn off electricity to our home? What good is grid electricity if the power company with market monopoly can hike up the price exorbitantly? We should measure success based on how free we are from energy dependency.”

—Lin Thu Hein, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Atutu  

Questions to consider

  • What would change if energy was treated as a human right rather than a commodity? 
  • Where do you sit within your locale’s energy system, and how does that shape your worldview?   

Meet the Bright Spots

A Forum for the Future initiative, in partnership with The Earthshot Prize, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and Trane Technologies, the Future of Sustainability: Reimagining the Way the World Works is showcasing the social and climate initiatives shaping a better future, today. 

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