Urban Transformation in South Africa Through Co-Designing Energy Services Provision Pathways
Status: Completed
Funders: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and National Research Foundation (NRF)
Website
Status: Completed
Funders: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and National Research Foundation (NRF)
Website
This project aimed to investigate the dynamics and co-evolution of municipal processes to create pathways for new, greener and fairer urban energy configurations.
The project established a dialogue between work on socio-technical transitions and on energy geographies to analyse and identify energy transition pathways towards municipal-scale energy services regimes.
The project established a dialogue between work on socio-technical transitions and on energy geographies to analyse and identify energy transition pathways towards municipal-scale energy services regimes.
Illegal electricity connections on an grid energy tower
Energy is a critical enabler of development. Energy transitions, involving changes to both systems of energy supply and demand, are fundamental processes behind the development of human societies and are driven by technical, economic, political, and social factors. Historical specificities and geography also influence the character of energy transitions.
South African cities are dependent on energy, and the access to and the provision of energy services affects urban energy transitions. Many cities in South Africa and beyond have adopted sustainable energy provision strategies and solutions as a way of promoting economic development and greening of urban economies, where it can reduce poverty and advance economic growth.
Municipal processes and systems will need to change in order for energy transitions to occur.
South African cities are dependent on energy, and the access to and the provision of energy services affects urban energy transitions. Many cities in South Africa and beyond have adopted sustainable energy provision strategies and solutions as a way of promoting economic development and greening of urban economies, where it can reduce poverty and advance economic growth.
Municipal processes and systems will need to change in order for energy transitions to occur.
“South Africa continues to experience rapid urbanisation, with approximately 64% of the country’s population living in urban areas (of which 40% are located in the metropolitan municipalities). Urban populations are forecast to reach 70% of the national total by 2030 and 80% by 2050” (Sustainable Energy Africa, 2015: 12).
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Findings of the project created an evidence-base for co-designing pathways for energy services provision in South Africa's cities, alongside exploring opportunities in new energy configurations for transformations to urban green economies.
A FOCUS ON RESEARCH
Qualitative: Interviews were conducted with multiple stakeholders in South Africa to investigate barriers and opportunities for energy services delivery to informal settlements in the country during the 2010s. The historical and political context that impacts on energy delivery in South Africa were also taken into account.
Interviews were conducted with multiple stakeholders in Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Polokwane.
Interviews were conducted with multiple stakeholders in Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Polokwane.
- Electricity supply industry
- National government
- Provincial government
- Municipal government
- Academics, and;
- NGO/civil society actors
PROJECT TEAM
SOUTH AFRICA
University of Cape Town
Jiska de Groot (now Senior Researcher at ACDI) joined the Energy Research Centre in 2015. Whilst at Plymouth University she was involved in several research projects into renewable energy deployment, in particular stakeholder engagement with marine renewable energy technologies. Besides her research on renewable energy development and stakeholder engagement, Jiska was involved with the International Network on Offshore Renewable Energy, to contribute to representation of the social sciences in the advancement of the renewable energy sector, and has been involved in geography teaching in the UK. Her current research interests include the social science aspects of the deployment of renewable energy technologies, marine renewable energy, clean energy access, and poverty alleviation in developing countries. Stakeholder engagement, fairness and justice perspectives and decision-making processes.
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Prof. Harald Winkleris director of the Energy Research Centre. His research interests are focused around climate policy, at international and national level. He led the research work underpinning South Africa’s Long-Term Mitigation Scenarios (LTMS). His current work includes work with other developing countries to share the LTMS exprience in a programme called MAPS – Mitigation Action Plans and Scenarios (see www.mapsprogramme.org). He developed the proposal of sustainable development policies and measures (SD-PAMs). Research areas have included equity and future commitments to climate action; economics of climate change mitigation; energy scenarios for South Africa and Cape Town; the links between sustainable development and climate change; renewable energy and mitigation. See Harald’s full profile.
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Dr Kim Coetzee (now Climate Policy Analyst at Climate Analytics) was based at the Energy Research Centre where she was the post-doctoral fellow on this project. Broadly, her area of interest is Global Environmental Governance; where is she is focuses on the overlap between the trade and climate change regimes, low carbon development strategies, and the role of alternative ideational constructs in the governance of climate change.
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Louise Tait (now an expert on the Transforming Energy Access – Learning Partnership (TEA-LP) at ACDI) joined the Energy Research Centre in January 2012 as a Researcher in the Energy Poverty and Development group. Prior to working at the ERC, she worked for consultancies in both South Africa and the United Kingdom in the fields of economic development and environmental policy. Louise’s main research interests relate to the nexus of energy and development issues in South Africa and other developing countries. Her two main research interests are: extending basic energy access to poor households; and climate change and energy policy design and implementation at both national and urban scales. She is also currently pursuing a PhD investigating energy service delivery in informal settlements.
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Sustainable Energy Africa
Mark Borchers has a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering and a M.Sc degree in Energy and Development Studies from the University of Cape Town's Engineering faculty. After working in the civil engineering industry, in 1988 he moved to the Energy for Development Research Centre (EDRC) at the University of Cape Town before co-founding the Energy & Development Group consultancy in 1993 and Sustainable Energy Africa in 2001. Mark's work has been broad-ranging, from integrated energy planning for the South African government, impact assessment of electrification projects, promoting access to electricity in the SADC region, developing Botswana's energy policy, promoting the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency, sustainable building, and economic analyses of low income household energy options. Over the past decade he has increasingly been involved in developing Energy and Climate Change Strategies for cities around South Africa and Africa, and supporting the implementation of such strategies. SEA has pioneered a city-based approach to transforming a country's energy future.
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Yachika Reddy has an MSc in Energy Studies from the University of Cape Town. She joined Sustainable Energy Africa in 2005. Her experience includes project management, training, facilitation, research and data analysis through working in wide-ranging and complex energy and climate change projects involving all three spheres of government (local, provincial and national). Working with the three spheres of government for more than a decade, she has a very good understanding of government’s priorities for development within these spheres. She has in-depth experience in local-level climate and energy data collation, analysis and strategy/policy development.
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Peta Wolpe (now Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Practioner) was a director of Sustainable Energy Africa. She has a BA degree in Sociology from the University of Essex and a Master of Science in Social Administration and Social Work Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Peta worked in the field of psychiatric social work in the United Kingdom for many years, working with adults suffering from a wide range of mental health problems. After her return to South Africa in 1996 she moved into the development sector and took a position at Community Development Resource Association (CDRA), an NGO working in the field of organisational development and training. She held leadership and management responsibilities which included strategic thinking and direction, financial management, fundraising and maintaining the organisation’s internal learning processes. She left CDRA to set up her own consultancy practice bringing together her therapeutic/social work skills and experience in leadership and management to work with NGOs in building their core leadership and management. She worked with a number of organisations in Southern Africa offering a range of services including an evaluation, mentoring individuals, organisational reviews, strategic planning, and administrative and leadership team processes.
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UNITED KINGDOM
Prof Federico Caprotti is the project lead and he is based at the University of Exeter, where he works on the future city, and especially on eco-urbanism and the green economy, in an international comparative context. In 2018-20, he is a Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute. His latest book, Eco-Cities and the Transition to Low Carbon Economies, was published by Palgrave in 2015. A geographer by training, he has lectured at the universities of Leicester, Oxford, University College London, Plymouth and King’s College London, and his research has been funded by the ESRC, NERC, the Royal Geographical Society, the British Academy, and the Nuffield Foundation. In 2015-18 he led an international research consortium, the SMART-ECO project, funded by the ESRC as well as by China’s NSFC, and by the national science funding agencies of the Netherlands, Germany and France.
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Dr Lucy Baker is a senior research fellow in the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex and a visiting fellow at the Energy Research Centre, University of Cape Town. Lucy has been researching South African energy issues since 2009 and has written extensively on this topic. Lucy’s areas of research include: the political economy of energy; socio-technical transitions; and low carbon development in low & middle income countries. Prior to joining academia Lucy worked for ten years with environment, development and human rights NGOs.
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Prof Stefan Bouzarovski is Professor of Geography at the University of Manchester. Stefan’s professional activities are situated at the intersection of two broad thematic areas: energy and cities. Within these domains, he is best known for his path-breaking research on the driving forces and spatial patterns of domestic energy deprivation at the global scale. Some of this work has taken place under the auspices of the European Research Council-funded EVALUATE project that he currently leads. Stefan has also been exploring the relationship between household everyday practices and residential change in inner-city areas – the subject of his monograph on Retrofitting the City (IB Tauris, 2016). His urban energy work has informed the policies of the European Union, World Bank and International Energy Agency, as well as a number of advocacy groups and governmental bodies across the world.
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Dr Stephen Essex is Associate Professor (Reader) in Human Geography at the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Science, Plymouth University. His teaching and research focuses on urban and rural planning, especially the infrastructural implications of the Olympic Games and post-war reconstruction planning. His main interests in this research project are to understand the role of municipality governance structures in facilitating pathways to low carbon urban energy configurations and the implications for urban growth, planning policy and infrastructural delivery.
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Dr Saska Petrova is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Environment, Education and Development and Director of the MSc in Environmental Governance at the University of Manchester. Her work focuses on how local people are rendered vulnerable and governable via different regimes of environmental governance and low-carbon urban transformation processes. Saska has published extensively on these issues, including a monograph on Communities in Transition (Ashgate, 2014) as well number of articles in leading scientific journals. She has been involved in several interdisciplinary research projects funded by the ESRC, EPRSC, Royal Geographical Society, Cheshire Lehmann Fund and Higher Education Academy. She also has an extensive professional background as a public advocate and consultant for a range of government institutions and think tanks.
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Jon Phillips (now University Lecturer in the Centre of Development Studies) was a Research Associate for the project at the University of Exeter. To date, his research has focused on the historical and contemporary development of energy production and provision in Africa. This has included a doctoral study on the spatial development of the oil and gas industry in Ghana, and previous research at the University of East Anglia on the governance of energy and climate change mitigation finance in South Africa. Through this project Jon is pleased to be engaging again with South African energy politics.
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Dr Deborah Potts was a Reader in Human Geography (until 2017) at King’s College London. She works in the broad research fields of urbanization and migration in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly southern Africa. She is interested in both the macro and micro aspects of African urban economies. Her research interests include the impacts of globalization and liberalised trade on African livelihoods, and the links between urban incomes and welfare, informalized urban economies, and migration patterns. form a particular element of this work. See Debby’s full profile.
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Contact:
Prof. Federico Caprotti, Co-principal investigator, United Kingdom, [email protected].
Dr Jiska de Groot, Co-principal investigator, South Africa, [email protected].