Building Integrity in the Energy Shift: How AI Can Transform Transparency and Trust

The report argues that AI and digital technologies can significantly strengthen transparency and governance across the clean-energy transition, reducing corruption risks and improving service delivery. It emphasizes that while these tools offer transformative potential, their success depends on strong ethical safeguards, institutional capacity, and political commitment to accountability.

Several leading institutions, including the UN Development Programme (UNDP), its Global Centre for Technology, Innovation and Sustainable Development, and the Anti-Corruption for Peaceful and Inclusive Societies (ACPIS) initiative, collaborate in this report to explore how artificial intelligence and digital public infrastructure can reshape governance in the energy sector. They argue that as countries accelerate toward low-carbon development, unprecedented flows of investment into renewable power, smart grids, and climate infrastructure present both opportunity and peril. These investments are vital for global climate goals, yet they can also create fertile ground for corruption, elite capture, and inefficiency. The report frames this as one of the most pressing governance challenges of the energy transition.

A Digital Wave Meets a Changing Energy Landscape

Governments worldwide are adopting digital identity systems, geospatial monitoring tools, open contracting platforms, and real-time data management systems. This digital momentum converges with rapid transformations in energy systems, expanding solar, wind, and distributed power generation, and growing reliance on smart-grid technologies. While these innovations promise new levels of transparency and efficiency, the report warns that poorly regulated digital systems can replicate old inequalities, introduce algorithmic bias, or create cybersecurity risks. Responsible governance of digital tools, it argues, is essential for a fair and inclusive energy transition.

Technology as a Shield Against Corruption

Across the energy value chain, procurement is flagged as the most corruption-prone stage. Renewable energy tenders, transmission-line contracts, and smart-grid hardware purchases often involve high costs and complex negotiations, creating opportunities for collusion and inflated pricing. The report highlights how e-procurement systems and algorithmic evaluation tools reduce discretion and manipulation by standardizing bid assessments and strengthening audit trails. Open contracting portals that publish bid details in machine-readable formats allow journalists, civil society, and regulators to scrutinize decisions that once remained hidden.

Smart Monitoring for Smarter Governance

The expansion of data-monitoring capabilities is positioned as a game-changer. AI-driven anomaly detection tools help electricity distributors identify irregular consumption patterns, detect theft, and reduce revenue leakages that burden utilities, particularly in lower-income countries. Satellite imagery and remote-sensing technologies serve as powerful tools for monitoring illegal mining, tracking deforestation linked to energy extraction, and verifying environmental compliance of infrastructure projects. Digital payment platforms and electronic registries further strengthen governance by minimizing leakages in energy-subsidy programs and ensuring assistance reaches intended households.

Building Ethical, Inclusive Digital Ecosystems

The report stresses that technological progress without strong governance can be counterproductive. Algorithms used in public-interest decisions, such as tariff setting, resource allocation, or subsidy targeting, must be explainable, contestable, and free from discriminatory outcomes. Many developing countries still face capacity gaps, from inadequate connectivity to limited technical expertise, which risk deepening rather than reducing inequalities. To counter this, the document calls for robust data-protection laws, cybersecurity standards, and sustained investment in institutional capability. It advocates for cross-agency collaboration between energy regulators, anti-corruption agencies, digital transformation units, and civil society. Open data policies and public participation in digital reforms are presented as crucial safeguards that enhance accountability and strengthen trust.

The Future: A Transparent and Trusted Energy Transition

The report argues that the intersection of digital transformation and clean-energy expansion represents one of the defining governance opportunities of the decade. As climate pressures intensify, public institutions will be judged not only on how rapidly they scale renewable energy but also on how transparently, ethically, and inclusively they manage the transition. Emerging technologies, from AI to satellite surveillance, can embed integrity into energy systems, but success ultimately depends on political will. Governments must choose whether to use digital tools merely for efficiency or to build deeper accountability, sustainability, and public trust.