Exploring the role of renewables in the making of African cities
Convenors: David Bauer (Technische Universität Berlin), Lucas-Andrés Elsner (Technische Universität Berlin)
Track: Transformative Practices
Keywords: Renewable Energy, Infrastructure, Energy Scarcity, Urban Energy Policies, Urban Transformation
Thursday October 24, 15:30–17:00, Far West Studio, John Moffat Building
SESSION 12
BETWEEN VISIONS OF THE GRAND TRANSITION AND INFORMAL SOLAR PANEL BUSINESSES: EXPLORING THE ROLE OF RENEWABLES IN THE MAKING OF AFRICAN CITIES
Providing adequate energy poses major challenges in the management of rapid urbanisation processes across the African continent. Municipalities need to expand equitable and reliable access to electricity and cooking fuels for notoriously undersupplied growing urban areas characterised by informality and stark inequalities. Simultaneously, they have to engage in a long-term decarbonisation strategy in the vein of SDG7 through rapid electrification and the expansion of renewable energy technologies.
Even though African cities hardly contribute to the climate emergency, the grand transition and ambitious goals to unlock the continent's huge renewable energy potential are carved out in national strategies and agendas of development banks and supranational organisations. However, the daily realities for communities and individuals in many urban areas are still characterised by struggles for access to basic infrastructure and informal energy supply arrangements.
This session brings together different perspectives and experiences with renewable energy infrastructures in African cities. Therefore, we invite contributions that explore the following issues:
- Policies and funding schemes promoting renewable energies at different scales and their potential contradictions
- Individual or community-based approaches employing renewables to address energy scarcity, their potentials, (socio-spatial) impacts and challenges they face (case studies)
- The mobility, origins, and transformations of urban energy policies and expert knowledge
- The (urban) political ecology and economy of renewable energy
- The role of urban climate finance in the promotion of renewable energy sources
Presentations
Exploring renewables to foster gendered energy transitions: a case of Mozambican urban households
The depletion of fossil fuels and the adverse implications of climate change, especially for least developed countries, demands a global and location-specific response. This study aims to evaluate the leverage intervention points for renewable energy transition to address the gendered problems in energy access in the household domain.
Co-producing a just urban transition in South Africa
This paper uses empirical data to explore the motivations and consequences of private renewable energy investments in South Africa cities. We question the role of the state in directing the transition underway, and explore the potential for state and private actors to co-produce a just transition.
Building an Urban Community Energy System in Maputo: challenges and opportunities
We're envisioning the lab as a space and possibilities where community, academia and even the local authorities will come together to share their knowledge, expertise, experience, challenges and aspiration. The laboratories within the community is based on the idea that things are very dynamics and some solution can be local based with possibilities to replicate in another neighbourhood in Maputo or elsewhere.
Housing quality and energy security in urban Sub-Saharan Africa. A qualitative policy analysis in DR Congo and Kenya
This paper seeks to contribute to the paucity of literature on housing quality and energy security in Sub-Sahara Africa by analyzing and comparing policies as well as strategy documents in Congo and Kenya through qualitative content analysis with a focus on decentralized solar energy in urban areas.
