Research Projects

The research project Reconfiguring Energy for Social Equity (ReSET) aims to develop a better understanding among academics and practitioners on how energy transitions and energy justice can be aligned in practice across different contexts (from the Netherlands, South Africa, India and Germany). Because of the urgency and speed of the global energy transition, ReSET seeks to not just develop new insights and contribute towards this knowledge base, but also to actively engage practitioners in the process in new ways. In addition, it seeks to connect and educate a new generation of transdisciplinary researchers across the Global North and South.

ReSET is about re-politicisation of the global energy debate moving it beyond mere Watts and Joules, fossils and renewables; and towards greater consideration of how to centre justice in energy transitions. Our analytical approach identifies three entry points: re-imagining, re-coding and re-configuring of energy infrastructures. In a context of a globally changing landscape of energy, we seek to find out the role of agency, also to inform actors on the ground. Using the term ‘institutional work’ we seek to reveal how a just transition can be furthered, drawing on the three entry points of the ‘Triple Re’ framework (re-imagining, re-coding, re-configuring). Drawing on four country case studies our research shows the dynamics at ‘critical moments’ to reveal entry points for a new politics of the energy transition.

Through case studies conducted across the four countries, we are investigating how groups on the ground grapple with, but also collaborate around, energy transition dynamics. Key questions in our case studies include: how do diverse actors work to centre justice in contested energy transition processes? How do they work across a myriad of settings and networks, to continuously shape energy infrastructures? Based on these diverse case studies, a comparative analysis will be conducted to elucidate key insights about how infrastructures are reimagined, recoded and reconfigured to support the alignment of investments with social justice and equity concerns. These will be translated into a set of policy and practice recommendations.

In South Africa, the project is driven by two PhD researchers, Kevin Foster and Thandeka Tshabalala. Kevin Foster’s PhD explores how municipalities are facing financial and governance crises and what opportunities are opened up in the energy transition in South Africa to shape electricity distribution systems to ensure more equitable and sustainable local governments. Thandeka’s PhD investigates how energy poverty is being institutionalised within the local government mandate in the City of Cape Town, and how this links with the struggles around municipal financial sustainability.

There is an additional case study that contributes towards the comparative analysis in the project which explores how municipal officials and renewable energy companies struggle to shape the governance of place-based investments in local communities, in the context of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme.