Tendering Sustainable Energy Transitions (TENTRANS)
Info
Start date: 1 April, 2018 End date: 1 January, 2021 Project type: Research projects in countries with targeted development cooperation (earlier Window 2) Project code: 17-M04-DTU Countries: South Africa Thematic areas: Economic development and value chains, Energy, Production, industry and labour market, Lead institution: Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Denmark Partner institutions: South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA), South Africa Danish Wind Industry Association, Denmark Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), Denmark University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa Project website: go to website (the site might be inactive) Project coordinator: Ivan Nygaard Total grant: 5,000,000 DKK Project files:
17-M04-DTU-Appendix-3b-policy-briefProject summary
The overall objective of the project is to contribute to a transition toward sustainability in the energy sector of emerging economies, including sustainable development of local communities and local industries. The project will analyse the developmental implications of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) implemented in South Africa (SA) with a focus on the effects of wind power projects on local industrial development and socio-economic development in local communities.
The project will contribute to enhance the research capacity of the younger researchers involved. It will build upon and contribute to significantly advance the literature on sustainability transitions in developing countries through an innovative combination of complementary perspectives on institutional change, global value chains and infant industry development.
It will draw on in-depth fieldwork carried out in SA based on qualitative research methods, such as interviews, documents, direct observations and project inventories. Through direct engagement with key policy makers and stakeholders, the project will seek to ensure that local developmental impacts are prioritized and ensured in renewable energy tendering schemes currently being implemented in SA, other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and internationally. The project will contribute to socially inclusive models of implementation by private companies involved in large-scale wind power projects by cooperating with the wind industry associations in Denmark and SA and through direct consultations.
Finally, the project serves as a pilot research for a subsequent five year research programme, which will be up-scaled to include solar PV, concentrated solar power (CSP) and hydro-power, and additional countries in SSA, such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana and Malawi.
Outputs
Project completion report
The research project analysed the developmental implications of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) implemented in South Africa (SA) with a focus on the effects of wind power projects on local industrial development and socio-economic development in local communities.
The overall objective of the research was that it should lead to an accelerated sustainable uptake of renewable energy technologies in South Africa and in other Sub Saharan African countries through an enhanced understanding of the relationship between design and development impacts of renewable energy procurement schemes. Through interaction with national stakeholders, project findings should contribute to improved policies and inclusive implementation by private sector actors.
Based on research outputs in terms of nine journal papers in high ranking journals, the project provided research based recommendations on how governments should: i) Ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of the auction schemes, ii) Strengthen local production and industrial development, and iii) Pay attention to developmental risks when implementing large scale infrastructure, was communicated directly to the IPP office, responsible for the tendering scheme, and to the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy and the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition. This was in the form of industry conferences, such as the WINDABA conferences in SA, formal advisory committee and other meetings, informal meetings, and even consultancy delivered by researchers on the side of the project. On the Danish side, the project reached out to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Danish Energy Agency, both entities involved in the sector cooperation programme and also to the Industrial Fund for Developing countries (IFU). Finally, knowledge from this project has effectively been incorporated into projects and teaching activities on the African continent, by SA partners for example in training courses for regulators across the continent and by UNEP DTU partnership in the Technology Needs Assessment project.
In late 2019, the South African Government agreed on a 10 year integrated resource plan for the electricity sector, in which was stipulated an annual procurement of about 2500 MW of renewables, so the research outputs have a good chance to influence the implementation of this plan.
