Transforming Access to Clean Energy Technologies in the Global South: Learning from Lighting Africa in Kenya

David Ockwell,Victoria Kasprowicz,Elsie Onsongo,Jacob Fodio Todd,Adrian Ely,Joanes Atela,Robert Byrne,Victoria Chengo

doi:10.3390/en14144362

Abstract

As SDG7-related interventions seek to transform access to clean energy, this paper presents an analysis of both a previous transformative intervention (Lighting Africa) and a theoretical approach to understanding how such transformations can be achieved in the Global South (socio-technical innovation system, STIS, building). The paper makes four contributions. First, it tests the extent to which the STIS-building concept is useful in understanding and conceptualising how Lighting Africa transformed the market for solar lanterns in Kenya from an estimated market size of 29,000 lamps in 2009 to one where 680,000 Lighting Africa certified lamps were sold in Kenya by the end of the Programme in 2013. Second, it presents the most in-depth analysis of Lighting Africa that we are aware of to date. Third, it presents a conceptual framework that illustrates the Lighting Africa approach, providing a framework for future policy interventions aiming to transform access to clean energy technologies in the Global South. Fourth, it reflects on weaknesses in the STIS approach. In particular, these include a need to better attend to: the gendered implications of interventions (and social justice more broadly); implications of different scales of technologies; value accumulation and the extent to which interventions benefit indigenous actors and local economies; and the political and economic implications of any intervention and its distribution of benefits.

Highlights

Delivering against the ambitions of UN SDG7 requires nothing short of a transformation in access to clean energy technologies in the Global South
[7] It is instructive to examine the Lighting Africa story in some detail to see what lessons can be learnt for designing and conducting systemic interventions such as those we argue are needed for achieving transformations in energy access, systemic interventions that amount to what we have above called socio-technical innovation systems” (STISs) building
Whilst available data on Lighting Africa in Kenya mentions the importance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs) and “affordability” arising as a key concern in the original quantitative study [82], our analysis revealed no specific data on price

Summary

Introduction

Delivering against the ambitions of UN SDG7 (ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030) requires nothing short of a transformation in access to clean energy technologies in the Global South. Understanding how to transform access to clean energy technologies via deliberate policy interventions in the Global South represents an urgent global priority. Many such policy interventions have begun to emerge, such as the UK FCDO funded Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) Programme that aims to transform access to cleaner cooking technologies across the developing world over a five year time period [2]. Whilst technology hardware and finance are undoubtedly part of the jigsaw, more recent social science-based research (summarised briefly below) has demonstrated that earlier failures to address the energy access challenge were due to the lack of attention paid to the socio-cultural and political contexts within which technology and finance intersect with the lived realities of people in the Global South. Even where interventions are finance based, such as in the pay-as-you-go mobile-enabled payment models for energy access, success has relied upon in-depth understandings of, and conscious alignment with, the social practices of poor women and men in consuming and paying for energy [4,5]

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