Chapter 6 Learning from the Kenyan solar PV innovation history

Despite decades of effort and billions of dollars spent, two thirds of people in sub-Saharan Africa still lack access to electricity, a vital pre-cursor to economic development and poverty reduction. Ambitious international policy commitments seek to address this, but scholarship has failed to keep pace with policy ambitions, lacking both the empirical basis and the theoretical perspective to inform such transformative policy aims. Sustainable Energy for All aims to fill this gap. Through detailed historical analysis of the Kenyan solar PV market the book demonstrates the value of a new theoretical perspective based on Socio-Technical Innovation System Building. Importantly, the book goes beyond a purely academic critique to detail exactly how a Socio-Technical Innovation System Building approach might be operationalized in practice, facilitating both a detailed plan for future comparative research as well as a clear agenda for policy and practice. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138656925_oachapter01.pdf Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138656925_oachapter06.pd

Improving technology transfer through national systems of innovation: climate relevant innovation-system builders (CRIBs)

The Technology Executive Committee (TEC) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) recently convened a workshop seeking to understand how strengthening national systems of innovation (NSIs) might help to foster the transfer of climate technologies to developing countries. This article reviews insights from the literatures on Innovation Studies and Socio-Technical Transitions to demonstrate why this focus on fostering innovation systems has potential to be more transformative as an international policy mechanism for climate technology transfer than anything the UNFCCC has considered to date. Based on insights from empirical research, the article also articulates how the existing architecture of the UNFCCC Technology Mechanism could be usefully extended by supporting the establishment of CRIBs (climate relevant innovation-system builders) in developing countries – key institutions focused on nurturing the climate-relevant innovation systems and building technological capabilities that form the bedrock of transformative, climate-compatible technological change and development

A political economy of niche-building: neoliberal-developmental encounters in photovoltaic electrification in Kenya

International agreements on energy access and climate change, formulated according to neoliberal orthodoxy, will drive significant finance to developing countries for clean technology investments. But critics call for more active state intervention – a developmental approach – arguing that free markets alone will not deliver what is required. This creates the potential for confrontation between contradictory ideologies in national policymaking and implementation: neoliberalism in global agreements versus developmentalism in national policy. The Kenyan photovoltaics (PV) market has long-experienced neoliberal-developmental policy interactions, reflecting on which can illuminate how such encounters might unfold in the future. We construct a new ‘niche political economy’ theoretical framework to analyse these past interactions, constituting one of three contributions we offer. The second is empirical, showing how PV practitioners, national policymakers and global development actors have negotiated their policymaking encounters over time. Our third contribution offers reflections on the issues explored, discussing what this might mean for future neoliberal-developmental encounters. We find that action on the ground will emerge from messy negotiated interactions between competing ideologies rather than be determined by powerful neoliberal actors. As such, realising global energy and climate ambitions becomes even more uncertain unless long-term active niche-building resources are secured in international agreements

Innovation histories workshop on the solar home system market in Kenya

This report presents proceedings of an innovation histories workshop on the Solar Home System (SHS) Market in Kenya. The workshop was held on 3 June 2013 at Silver Springs Hotel in Nairobi Kenya. Stakeholders in the SHS market convened to reflect, draw on, capture and share thoughts and experiences to develop a comprehensive national innovation history, illustrating actions of key actors in Kenya who have contributed to the success of the Kenyan SHS market. Stakeholders from the United Kingdom and Kenya comprised researchers, policymakers, private sector actors and the media. The one-day workshop saw the participants developing a personal innovation history timeline as well as contributing through participatory and interactive approaches to develop a national SHS innovation history timeline. Participants expressed satisfaction in the process that led to the development of the innovation history timeline and expressed interest to participate in any future research and workshop on the subject

The uptake and diffusion of solar power in Africa: socio-cultural and political insights on a rapidly emerging socio-technical transition in developing countries

This special issue focuses on the rapid recent growth of solar PV across various geographies and scales in Africa. Herein we summarise the contributions of the component papers and position them within the context of the literature on sustainable energy access. We argue that there is an urgent need for greater attention to the neglected socio-cultural and political dimensions of sustainable energy access, dimensions that are vital to understand if ambitious global SDG commitments to achieving sustainable energy for all (ever, let alone by 2030) are to be achieved. This special issue includes papers on the: systemic and socio-technical nature of energy access transitions; politics and political economy of energy access; gendered dimensions of energy access; critical STS perspectives on the dominant, technologically determinist framing of energy access and implications for marginalising local actors, and; (for the first time in the energy access literature), application of social practice perspectives on energy access. The result is a diverse range of empirically grounded, theoretically and methodologically novel (in relation to the existing literature) approaches, providing important new insights into how to understand the neglected socio-cultural and political dimensions of sustainable energy access, whilst simultaneously increasing our understanding thereof

Can Pay-As-You-Go, digitally enabled business models support sustainability transformations in developing countries? Outstanding questions and a theoretical basis for future research

This paper examines the rapidly emerging and rapidly changing phenomenon of pay-as-you-go (PAYG) digitally enabled business models, which have had significant early success in providing poor people with access to SDG relevant technologies (e.g. for electricity access, water and sanitation and agricultural irrigation). Data is analysed based on literature review, two stakeholder workshops (or “transformation labs”) and stakeholder interviews (engaging 41 stakeholders in total). This demonstrates the existing literature on PAYG is patchy at best, with no comprehensive or longitudinal, and very little theoretically grounded, research to date. The paper contributes to existing research on PAYG and sustainability transformations more broadly in two key ways. Firstly, it articulates a range of questions that remain to be answered in order to understand and deliver against the current and potential contribution of PAYG to effecting sustainability transformations (the latter we define as achieving environmental sustainability and social justice). These questions focus at three levels: national contexts for fostering innovation and technology uptake; the daily lives of poor and marginalised women and men, and; global political economies and value accumulation. Secondly, the paper articulates three areas of theory (based on emerging critical social science research on sustainable energy access) that have potential to support future research that might answer these questions, namely: socio-technical innovation system building; social practice, and; global political economy and value chain analysis. Whilst recognising existing tensions between these three areas of theory, we argue that rapid sustainability transformations demand a level of epistemic pragmatism. Such pragmatism, we argue, can be achieved by situating research using any of the above areas of theory within the broader context of Leach et al.’s (2010) Pathways Approach. This allows for exactly the kind of interdisciplinary approach, based on a commitment to pluralism and the co-production of knowledge, and firmly rooted in a commitment to environmental sustainability and social justice, that the SDGs demand

Radical Solar Energy Startups in Kenya and Tanzania

This working paper focuses on radical startups of solar photovoltaics (PV) in Kenya and Tanzania. The research was conducted in the Neo-Carbon Energy project (2014-2017) and finalized in the science-communication project Great Electrification in Peer-to-Peer Society (2018), conducted at the Finland Futures Research Centre (FFRC) in the University of Turku.The purpose of the working paper is to test one of the Neo-Carbon Energy project’s transformative scenarios, called Radical Startups 2050, and reflect it in Kenya and Tanzania. In East Africa, over 80 million people could benefit from mobile-enabled energy services. Kenya and Tanzania are pioneering solar energy markets in sub-Saharan Africa, where policy makers are seeking to achieve ‘sustainable energy for all’ objectives, and are increasingly focussed on entrepreneurial clean energy technology ventures. Many solar companies have started their operations in these markets, which has strengthened a narrative of a market-led energy transition in East Africa. Remarkably, there has been limited analysis about the factors that have enabled these pioneering ventures to emerge.The scenario testing is performed by first examining the historic evolution of the solar PV niche in Kenya and Tanzania, which shows how multiple pioneers built a solar energy niche over a few decades before the current solar innovation boom. The situation at the present shows how a growing number of ‘heroic’ solar entrepreneurs from home and abroad are now addressing energy poverty in East Africa. The company case studies describe their business models, proposed solutions and corporate histories to explore how they have emerged, and tell a story of ‘radical’ startups now pioneering in different ways. This exercise opens up novel avenues to think critically about the role of innovation in development. At least six important considerations seem to deserve further attention. The working paper opens up novel debates and questions related to this strategy, and provokes thoughts on the everyday practices that are promised to make innovation to deliver on environmental, social and economic goals. Of particular future policy relevance is the issue of learning and value retention from innovation activities.</p

Updating the case studies of the political economy of science granting councils in sub-saharan Africa : national case study report of Senegal

This report highlights issues in Senegal with regard to science granting councils. Policy makers and politicians need to complete the formulation and adoption of the anticipated national science, technology and innovation (STI) policy, and to further emphasise the role of STI for socioeconomic development and transformation. Efforts are needed in articulating specific goals and allocation of funding. As it stands, the majority of funding for research (STI and R&D) is from the government. The number of researchers has increased in 2020 to 22,185 compared to 14,335 in 2017. However, the number of full-time researchers remains small

Updating the case studies of the political economy of science granting councils in sub-saharan Africa : national case study report of Ethiopia

The most recent reforms (2018) to the science technology and innovation (STI) system in Ethiopia are the formation of the Ministry of Innovation and Technology (MInT) and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MoSHE). The limited involvement of the government, private sector and academia in STI has resulted in insufficient funding and poorly qualified human resources. A national technological infrastructure is lacking along with limited access to finances. However, the current MInT mandate is focussed on supporting local innovations and technology development through a product and services engineering directorate, incubation centre development directorate, and a start-up strategy