Energy Megaprojects Research Articles

Assessing good governance principles of renewable energy megaprojects

Australia has a net zero emission target by 2050. The transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy sources is critical to meeting this target and the construction of large-scale renewable energy projects is booming. These developments bring economic benefits, but their size means they can also have environmental and social consequences. Rural landscapes are particularly vulnerable because they are expected to be at the forefront of new large-scale renewable energy developments. Such projects are complex and, although they might be socially acceptable, need to be managed and governed well if they are to proceed smoothly. Good governance incorporates fairness, trust and transparency, aspects that foster public acceptance for renewable energy projects. While social acceptance has attracted substantial research, little is known about the public's views on the governance of renewable energy megaprojects. In Australia, a continent with abundant solar radiation and space, large projects are novel and our study aimed to assess which good governance principles the public considers to be most important if megaprojects are to be approved for construction in remote Australia. This insight can complement state and investors views on governance. We carried out an Australia-wide online survey that included a best-worst scaling (BWS) experiment and received 2223 valid responses, using an ambitious 12,000-ha solar megafarm planned for remote northern Australia as a case study. The most important governance principal for respondents was taking responsibility for environmental risk, followed by benefits such as cheap energy and jobs for the local community - governance principles referred to as responsiveness and participation. Accountability if something goes wrong was also perceived as important, but mainly by those respondents who lived in the jurisdiction that is the proposed host of the solar megafarm, and less so by people living in other places of Australia. Perhaps surprisingly, the governance principles of transparency, fairness and the rule of law were considered to be less important. Adhering to national regulations was also affected by the location of respondents, with those living closer to the proposed megafarm being least concerned about adherence.

‘Our Path from the Land’: Environmental Displacement and Anthropocenic Futures in Chinese Short Fiction

ABSTRACT As global warming imperils resource production and international security, nations around the world have been urged to develop sustainable, resilient infrastructure to curb and mitigate the worst effects of climate change. China has raced ahead in this process, commissioning hydraulic and green energy megaprojects to maintain the nation’s economic stability in the face of environmental precarity. However, these developments have come with a high cost for Chinese citizens, permanently forcing millions from their homes. Literary and cultural responses to displacement from Chinese authors abound, dividedly praising and critiquing the state’s technocratic, growth-centric response to climate change challenges. This article compares two such short stories, namely Liu Cixin’s ‘Yuanyuan’s Bubbles’ (2015) and Wang Ping’s ‘Maverick’ (2007) to consider the tensions surrounding green infrastructural transitions in contemporary China, where, on both sides of the polemic, the environmental migrant functions as a symbol of the nation’s uncertain social futurity.

Emerging alternatives in megaproject management

Aim: The aim of this paper is to contribute to the project management studies by systematization, generalization, and structurization of information about an energy megaproject in Cyprus, as well as to provide practical insights and guidance on how megaprojects can be started and managed in other locations. Design / Research methods: By its research design, this paper is a case study analysis. The major focus of the case study is the decision-making process of the LNG energy megaproject in Cyprus. Conclusions/findings: Even positive emerging alternatives, like the discovery of newly natural resources, can delay a megaproject instead of speeding up it due to impact on the decision-making process and reassessment of the value creation. Originality/value of the article: The LNG energy megaproject in Cyprus provides a unique example of an emerging strategic alternative which requires a reassessment of the initial approach and its comparison in terms of value creation with the newly appeared opportunity. Keywords: project management, emerging alternatives, megaprojects, LNG energy project, value creation, risk assessment, ESG JEL: G31, H43, P28.

Energy Colonialism in Europe: A Participatory Analysis of the Case of Granada (Spain)

The energy crisis and the exacerbation of climate change, along with the associated geopolitical tensions, including the war in Ukraine, are accelerating the energy transition in Europe. A transition from fossil energy sources to renewable energy sources that have a low Energy Return Rate, involves, among many other issues, the use of wide areas to locate the necessary infrastructure for production, transport and storage, altering territories with agricultural, cultural and ecological values. This process is based on the deployment of renewable energy megaprojects in peripheric areas of the continent, mostly in the southern states creating a wide range of social conflicts and resistances. We analyse this process in the case study of the province of Granada, a peripheric territory of south-east Spain considering the category of energy colonialism and the six dimensions that characterise it, arguing that this is a proper approach to address internal colonialism related to the corporate energy transition. We also want to demonstrate the importance of using participatory methodologies for this analysis, so we have developed an online survey, semi-structured interviews and participatory cartography workshops, always focusing on the citizens and stakeholders who are resisting the deployment of renewable energy megaprojects in the province of Granada. The obtained results allow us to confirm the necessity of using participatory methodologies and the colonial aspect of this deployment, including the characteristics of social resistance, the territorial impacts, the land-grabbing process and the inequalities in the production, distribution and use of energy. We conclude with the need to articulate a decolonial energy transition where participatory methods constitute a fundamental tool both to attend the resistances and to build the alternatives.

Threats to conservation from national security interests.

There is a growing trend of nation states invoking national security and emergency declarations to build state-sponsored infrastructure projects for border defense, energy production, and transportation. Established laws, regulations, and agreements for the protection of nature and cultural heritage within and between countries are becoming secondary to national security, compromising the function of protected areas, such as national parks, wilderness areas, and biosphere reserves that safeguard biodiversity, climate, and human health. We considered cases where decades-long multinational cross-border endangered species recovery programs have been jeopardized by waivers of environmental protection laws to facilitate rapid construction of border barriers that impede the movement and migration of animals, such as at the US-Mexico and Poland-Belarus borders. Renewable energy megaprojects, such as the Pinacate solar plant in Mexico, coupled with power transmission lines and road networks likewise cast a large footprint on the land and are being carried out with minimal to no environmental compliance under the guise of national security. National sovereignty likewise has been used as justification for bypassing laws to proceed with similar projects, such as Mexico's Dos Bocas refinery and Poland's Vistula Spit canal. Emphasis on security is also apparent in increasing military expenditure by the world's largest economies, which has created a mismatch with improvement in environmental policy stringency. Decisions to prioritize security can undermine democratic principles and environmental review protocols, trivialize humanity's dependence on functioning ecosystems, and contradict the United Nation's resolution on the human right to a healthy environment. Framing infrastructure projects as matters of national security also foments civil and political unrest by the labeling and casting of dissenters, including conservation scientists and environmental defenders, as antinational. World leaders must refrain from misusing extraordinary powers, adhere to laws and international agreements, and consult experts and local people before taking unilateral action on projects that affect ecological and human communities.

Renewable Energies in India and Mexico: Social and Territorial Issues

This article aims to analyse the causes and effects of the proliferation of renewable energy megaprojects in Mexico and India, delving more specifically into wind and solar power projects. Particular emphasis is placed on the fact that their presence is part of a planetary phenomenon, one that caters to global environmental and economic interests but is simultaneously guided by national contexts and policies. In this context, this article uses Andreas Malm’s (2020) concept of fossil capital, drawing a close connection between the inception of capitalism, which he locates at the start of the Industrial Revolution, and the proliferation of fossil fuel use. However, in recent years, clean energies have gathered momentum and attained a certain preponderance, yet the question of what actually is the role that these energies have come to play remains. This article frames the generation of energy as a structural matter to engage with this question. It is based on qualitative methodology, drawing on information from the author’s fieldwork experiences in Mexico as well as bibliographic and hemerographic review.

Energy Colonialism: A Category to Analyse the Corporate Energy Transition in the Global South and North

This article aims to define the category of energy colonialism in order to analyse the conflicts that are arising due to the deployment of renewable energy megaprojects in the Global South and in the peripheries of the Global North. First, the limits of the corporate energy transition are questioned, and based on an exhaustive bibliographic review, the category of energy colonialism is formulated along with six dimensions that characterise it: geopolitical; economic and financial inequalities; power, violence, and decision making; land grabbing and dispossession; impacts on territories and commons; resistance and socio-territorial conflicts. Based on this framework, we analyse and juxtapose different expressions of energy colonialism in four case studies; the isthmus of Tehuantepec (Oaxaca, Mexico), the territories of Western Sahara occupied by Morocco, the Saami territory in Norway, and the rural territories of Spain. The results from this study allow us to conclude that energy colonialism is a useful concept for understanding and critiquing the effects of the corporate energy transition and establishing a base for grassroots and decolonial alternatives in both the Global North and South.

The poor woman’s energy: Low-modernist solar technologies and international development, 1878–1966

AbstractSolar energy often appears a resource without a history, perpetually novel and promising futuristic abundance. This overlooks a long episode of ‘low-modernist’ solar research in and for the global South. Focusing especially on India and detouring through Mexico, two important arenas for early solar experimentation, this article traces an alternative history of solar technologies as austere everyday fixes for developing countries. In parallel with the well-known postcolonial focus on high-modernist energy mega-projects, the narrow transnational community of solar experts retained a competing tendency to think small. At its heart lay a dualistic conception of the modern energy economy: flexible and resource-intensive grid electricity for urban centres, inferior off-grid devices to meet the minimal and static needs of the rural poor. This impoverished, feminized Third World projected user base resulted in persistent underinvestment and failed commercialization, helping to explain why solar technologies did not take off earlier. While solar experts emphasized the regional exceptionalism of the arid tropics, the teleological linkage between modernity and ever-rising energy abundance was rejuvenated from below as rural communities began to imagine the high-energy good life as a universal aspiration.

Neglecting exit doors: How does regret cost shape the irreversible execution of renewable energy megaprojects?

The energy transition process nowadays is characterized by the replacement of fossil fuels-based means of production with renewable energy (RE). Alongside the diffusion of decentralized RE, this process is associated with the increased promotion of RE megaprojects. Such megaprojects, however, are often shaped by path-dependent lock-ins and thus continue to be promoted with limited changes despite the emergence of better alternatives along the way. This study explores the role of lock-ins in the irreversibility of RE megaprojects while highlighting the notion of regret cost. In particular, the study sheds light on the influence of lock-ins within megaprojects, specifically focusing on their execution stage. Using the establishment process of Ashalim, a giant thermal solar power station in southern Israel, as a case study, we demonstrate how various lock-ins increase regulators’ regret cost, thus escalating their commitment to the megaproject and causing them to neglect diverse “exit doors” during execution. We thus illuminate the irreversibility of RE megaprojects and question their capability to meet the growing need of energy markets for flexibility.

Governance Challenges of South Asia’s Energy Megaprojects

ABSTRACT For the first time since the end of British colonisation in 1947, the poorly integrated and politically volatile region of South Asia is about to embark on the development of several multilateral energy megaprojects. Historically, regional energy cooperation in South Asia has been undermined by a range of geopolitical issues. Political developments in the last decade have faciliated an unprecedented level of cooperation on energy, and currently several multilateral pipelines and hydroelectric projects are at advanced stages of implementation. Yet, the progress in the physical and bureaucratic development of energy projects has not been complemented by a corresponding conceptualisation of the governance challenges of these initiatives. Within academic literature, there is a dearth of studies that analyses the critical aspect of collectively governing the proposed and under-construction energy megaprojects in South Asia. This gap is concerning as the complexity of energy megaprojects and weak governance systems in developing countries can lead to enormous economic, social and environmental externalities. This article aims to identify the governance challenges of South Asia’s energy megaprojects. To this end, the article draws on literature on global energy governance and energy megaprojects and primary data from interviews undertaken with policymakers. The article synthesises literature on energy cooperation in South Asia with existing knowledge on megaprojects and global energy governance. In doing so, the paper addresses one of the key gaps in literature, which is the lack of studies that appraises megaprojects in the context of interactions between domestic and international politics. Due to the growing importance of energy megaprojects to regional integration and energy transition, the findings of this article have relevance towards policies on global governance and sustainable development.

Hydroelectricity, Environmental Governance and Anti-Reflexivity: Lessons from Muskrat Falls

Hydroelectric projects are often pursued on the promise of economic development and environmental co-benefits as a source of low-carbon energy. We analyse the case of the Muskrat Falls hydropower mega-project (located in Labrador, Canada) to understand why this project failed to live up to its promised benefits, but instead delivered a double disaster of economic cost and environmental risk. The key concepts of anti-reflexivity and deep stories help us understand why the project assumed an aura of inevitability in political and public discourse until it was too late to change course. Drawing on publicly available data and secondary sources, we identify the constellation of social forces that maintained political anti-reflexivity about the economic and environmental risks of the project and led to a double economic and environmental disaster. Our analysis identifies vital lessons for countering anti-reflexivity and improving environmental governance related to energy mega-projects.

How can South Africa advance a new energy paradigm? A mission-oriented approach to megaprojects

Abstract Green transition is a ‘wicked’ problem in that it is complex, systemic, interconnected, and urgent. In this paper we advance a ‘mission-oriented’ approach to reconceptualize energy megaprojects within a systemic, cross-sectoral, and challenge-driven policy framework for energy transition. This approach is operationalized through a discussion of project-level policy instruments including directional public finance, public procurement, and several types of conditionality. These instruments are geared towards shaping markets and industrial supply chains for green transition, and managing risks and rewards associated with energy megaprojects. We also look at the opportunities offered by a more decentralized energy system and the importance of building up state capacity and green coalitions supporting energy transition. We discuss this mission-oriented approach through a deep dive on the South African experience of energy megaprojects with a focus on the restructuring of its public utility, Eskom, as well as opportunities for sustainable industrialization.

Energy justice issues in renewable energy megaprojects: implications for a socioeconomic evaluation of megaprojects

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate and discuss stakeholder issues faced by renewable energy megaprojects and in particular solar and wind power projects and their relevance to socioeconomic evaluation of megaprojects.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses secondary data collected from the recent literature published on stakeholder issues face by mega solar and wind power energy generation projects around the world. The issues are then analysed across specific challenges in five continents where these projects are being developed. The paper then focuses on the literature on energy justice to elaborate the type of issues being faced by renewable energy megaprojects contributing to the achievement of UN Sustainable Goal 7 and their impact on vulnerable communities where these projects are situated.FindingsRenewable energy megaprojects are rarely discussed in the project management literature on megaprojects despite their size and importance in delivering sustainable development goals. While these projects provide social benefits they also create issues of justice due to their impact of vulnerable populations living is locations where these projects are situated. The justice issues faced include procedural justice, distributive justice, recognition inequalities. The type of justice issues was found to vary intensity in the developed, emerging and developing economies. It was found that nonprofit organisations are embarking on strategies to alleviate energy justice issues in innovative ways. It was also found that, in some instances, smaller local projects developed with community participation could actually contribute more equitable to the UN sustainable development goals avoiding the justice issues posed by mega renewable energy projects.Research limitations/implicationsThe research uses secondary data due to which it is difficult to present a more comprehensive picture of stakeholder issues involving renewable energy megaprojects. The justice issues revealed through thesis paper with renewable energy megaprojects are also present in conventional megaprojects which have not been discussed in the project management literature. Post-COVID-19 these justice issues are likely to become mor prevalent due to the pandemic's impact on vulnerable population exacerbating the issues and increasing their severity on these populations. Therefore it is becoming even more critical to take these into account while developing renewable energy megaprojects.Practical implicationsProper identification and response to energy justice issues can help in alleviating stakeholder issues in renewable energy megaprojects.Social implicationsContributes to the equitable achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7.Originality/valueThis paper addresses a gap in the project management literature on the exploration of stakeholder issues on renewable energy megaprojects. It also brings out the importance of justice issues which can assist in expanding stakeholders issues faced by megaprojects as these issues have not received sufficient attention in the past in the project management literature.

Autocratic power? Energy megaprojects in the age of democratic backsliding

Cross-border energy megaprojects play an important role in global energy transition. However, energy megaprojects have enormous impacts on socio-political systems. The global decline of democratic norms in the last decade has important implications for energy megaprojects, which have not been systematically examined. This article examines the mutual constitution between autocratization and energy megaprojects. It develops a conceptual framework that appraises the link between authoritarian durability and the incentives and risks of energy megaprojects. The article engages with data on political rights and civil liberties in 16 countries involved in five forthcoming energy megaprojects. It finds that energy megaprojects offer five pathways to the enhancement of authoritarian durability, namely 1) Autocratic Linkage, 2) Coercion of Rivals, 3) Cultivating Dependence, 4) Symbolic Politics and 5) Spheres of Influence. The research also finds that autocratization exacerbates known risks of energy megaprojects. This suggests that autocratization can increase the likelihood of megaprojects being constructed but magnifies the prospect of megaproject failure. The article advances knowledge on autocratization and democratic backsliding by proposing that forthcoming energy megaprojects can be a key element of authoritarian durability. The research contributes to an understanding of energy megaprojects as dynamic entities that respond to and influence diverse governance systems across political boundaries. The analysis proposes that policy choices between environmental protection and economic developments are made more complex by autocratic capture of energy technologies, indicating that global efforts towards balancing climate change mitigation with poverty alleviation must also consider the impact of these initiatives on democratic backsliding.

Towards the liberalization of the energy market: structural changes and implementation challenges of the 2013 Mexican energy reform insights in the energy nexus

Through the decades Mexico has gone through different transition stages in its national energy sector, aiming to adopt the best practices from Europe and North America. Since the 2013 energy reform implementation, strategic and structural changes have been made to strengthen the energy transition process. This research analyses the structural changes in the energy industry due to a reform that promotes a transition from a vertical scheme directed by a state monopoly to a liberalized scheme allowing private sector participation through new market mechanisms. In this way, a review of the legal and regulatory framework is presented where new bodies are created or assigned to manage and regularize the several agencies and actors in the sector. Additionally, a multiaxial analysis of the main challenges of implementing renewable energy mega-projects is proposed, considering a structural and socio-cultural approach based on case studies. This analysis reveals that these challenges have political, economic, socio-cultural, and environmental implications, which should generate mechanisms built by the wide variety of stakeholders engaging with the sustainable transition.

Socio-economic impacts of strategic oil and gas megaprojects: A case study in Kuwait

The upgrade of existing refining facilities has great importance to produce high-quality petroleum products that meet the future diversified market requirements. In the existing literature, many papers have dealt with impact analysis of projects. However, studies assessing local, regional and national impacts of oil and gas megaproejcts are missing. In this study, a systematic Input-Output methodology is developed to set out the socio-economic contribution of oil and gas megaprojects. This methodology shows how clean energy megaprojects can contribute to Gross Domestic Product and employment. The central concept of the Input-Output analysis is to link the output value of one industry to the products and services it buys as inputs from other industries. These links are interpreted as relationships resulting in Input-Output tables. Using different multipliers, the Input-Output model is used to calculate the economy's overall effects of megaprojects. As a case study, we analyze the impacts of two megaprojects, the Clean Fuels Project and the Al-Zour Refinery Project, on the economy and the society of the State of Kuwait. The proposed methodology estimates the direct impact carried out by companies that are part of the oil and gas sector, the indirect impact of other Kuwait-based businesses in the supply chain, and the induced impact resulting from household spending of labor income. The obtained results indicate significant positive impacts on Gross Domestic Product and employment during the operation and the construction phases.

Is the Spillover Hypothesis of Neofunctionalism Functional in an Asian Context? The China–Central Asia and China–Southeast Asia Pipelines in Comparative Perspective

To secure an oil and gas supply, China has built several types of energy infrastructure near its borders and developed energy cooperation with regional partners based on this infrastructure. However, not all energy cooperation projects develop at an equal pace or are equally successful. This study employs the neofunctionalist spillover hypothesis—one of several key discourses applied to explaining European integration—to account for the difference in regional cooperation between two China-driven energy megaprojects in Asia: the China–Central Asia Pipelines and the China–Southeast Asia Pipelines. After investigation into the so-called spillover hypothesis, including “functional spillover,” “political spill-over,” and “cultivated spillover,” the more successful of the two projects was also found to be more significant in terms of its spillover effect. Thus, this article finds that regional cooperation in the Chinese context also supports the spill-over hypothesis, which has conventionally been regarded as a Europe-based discourse.

Autocratic Power: Energy Megaprojects in the Age of Democratic Backsliding

Autocratic Power: Energy Megaprojects in the Age of Democratic Backsliding

Sustainability, Sociocultural Challenges, and New Power of Capitalism for Renewable Energy Megaprojects in an Indigenous Mayan Community of Mexico

Sustainable development is an integrated blend of energetic, economic, social, environmental, and governmental actors, making it one of the most challenging and subjective aims of the United Nations. A sustainability project that does not consider any of these parameters can generate resistance among different actors of society. In this work, we have demonstrated that the traditional definition of sustainability encompassing economic development, environmental protection, and social justice does not adequately cover large-scale renewable energy projects. We have presented an illuminating case study of solar development in the Yucatan state of Mexico to show that the traditional three-legged stool of sustainable development fails to accommodate local power relations and their role in energy decision-making. This point is made through a substantive and illuminating ethnography of a solar project in the community of San José Tipceh, which involves the importance of energy democracy and understanding power relations in any assessment of sustainable development. These power relations are an important component of sustainable development, and all megaprojects, especially renewable energy projects, require special attention in the governance processes. Through an analysis of an example of implementation of a mega solar project, we argue that the methodology through which the power is exercised is an exercise of great importance because it leads us to a scientific discussion that structures an international reflection on sustainability. The case study consists of mixed methods, including several techniques to deepen the analysis of sociocultural aspects, and tries to present the limits and show the weakness of the sustainability perspective in such megaprojects. It is concluded that environmental justice as a basic element of the new era of renewable energies is limited and can generate social injustices. In the same way, this work shows how power is exercised in the implementation of energy projects and in the absence of equitable comprehensive governance that does not consider the local sociocultural contexts of the communities, resulting in the generation of new powers and permanent conflicts. At the end of this work, a framework to empower local sociocultural contexts for an equitable energy transition is recommended.

Exposing the True Costs of a “Clean” Energy Megaproject in the Peace River Valley

Exposing the True Costs of a “Clean” Energy Megaproject in the Peace River Valley