Towards new configurations of urban energy governance in South Africa’s renewable energy procurement programme.

Towards new configurations of urban energy governance in South Africa’s renewable energy procurement programme.

Author(s): Davies, M., Swilling, M., Wlokas, H.L.
Link to CST author(s): Prof. Mark Swilling, Dr. Holle Linnea Wlokas, Dr. Megan Davies
Publication: Energy Research & Social Science
Year: 2017
Full reference: Davies, M., Swilling, M., Wlokas, H.L. 2017. Towards new configurations of urban energy governance in South Africa’s renewable energy procurement programme. Energy Research & Social Science 36:61-69
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629617303997

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Summary

The South African Department of Energy launched the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Program (REIPPPP) in 2011 to secure additional renewable energy generation capacity for South Africa’s national electricity grid. The procurement framework included expenditure targets to drive socio-economic (SED) and enterprise development (ED) in local communities, together with requirements related to job creation through local employment as well as local community shareholding [2]. The article explores the opportunities opened up for alternative configurations of urban energy governance given the emergence of new dispersed and decentralised socio-technical infrastructure and the accompanying place-based investments by Independent Power Producers (IPPs). What follows is first an analysis of the relationship between the spatial realities of energy transitions and the political dynamics of the urban. Thereafter the article presents an exploration of the developmental implications of the programme together with three scenarios which might contribute towards enhancing the development outcomes of the REIPPPP, integrating IPPs into local economies or building sustainable energy democracies. In this way, we try to demonstrate how the expansion of utility scale renewable energy infrastructure might catalyse the emergence of new ‘spatial imaginaries’ [12] and the possibility of building ‘new forms of collective life’ [13] in South Africa.