Abstract
In a world in which rising powers are reconfiguring global development trajectories with significant implications for their sustainability, it becomes increasingly important to understand whether and how low carbon energy transitions might be enabled or frustrated by this new global geography of power. Towards this end, this paper makes the case for bringing together insights from three broad sets of literature on: (1) socio-technical transitions; (2) the rising powers as (re)emerging development donors and; (3) energy geographies. In building bridges between these three bodies of scholarship we seek to develop an alternative analytical framework that attends more effectively to the global and domestic political economy of transitions and whose value is illustrated empirically in relation to the growing involvement of Brazil, India and China in the energy systems of Mozambique and South Africa. We argue that this alternative framework provides a better understanding of how the rising powers are influencing the changing relationships between low carbon and fossil-fuel based energy pathways and of the multiple roles they are playing in the development and transformation of energy systems, through the development of 'niches' where innovation can emerge, or in reinforcing or challenging existing 'regimes' or dominant ways of providing energy services.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 10-19 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Energy Research and Social Science |
| Volume | 17 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jul 2016 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
In developing a political economy of energy transitions in the Southern African context, we are responding to calls from others who find the ‘political economy of energy transitions is a vastly understudied area’ [34: p. 238] or call for a ‘politically oriented literature on sustainability transitions’ [51: p. 70] , a demand some writers have recently started to respond to [44,31] . Rather than this being merely about bringing institutions or the state into the analysis of actors and power relations which shape the prospects of low carbon energy transformations, drawing on literatures from global political economy we seek to develop a more multi-actor and ‘global’ reading of the politics of transition. This goes beyond the analysis of inter-state resource diplomacy common to existing literatures on rising powers to look within and across the state at some of the key political economic factors that shape landscapes, regimes and niches. In terms of how best to understand the degree of power Southern African countries have to set the terms of their own transition, literatures within global political economy can help to get a better handle on the power , capacity and autonomy that states have to secure and negotiate different outcomes and the implications for diverse pathways to more sustainable forms of energy production. In addressing the neglect of wider structural forces in particular, insights from critical International Political Economy (IPE) can be applied to understand the scope that states have to establish their own development policies in a context of what has been referred to as ‘disciplinary neo-liberalism’ [33] where the structural power of capital in a globalised economy, supported by global economic institutions, is used to discipline states adopting policies and interventions that run counter to prevailing neo-liberal orthodoxy. The wave of World Bank influenced power sector reform and electricity privatization programmes undertaken in Africa throughout the 1980s and 1990s [35] and the drive for market solutions to energy problems are indicative of this trend, as is the withdrawal of support from states adopting more interventionist modes of regulation. This usefully highlights how the type and depth of power sector liberalization inhibits freedom of manoeuvre to select energy pathways that depart from prevailing neo-liberal policy orthodoxy [68] . At the same time literature which examines the ‘policy autonomy’ and ‘development space’ [70,29] available to African states is helpful in understanding their scope to withstand pressures from transnational capital and international organizations with regard to their differential ability to shape the terms of their energy transitions. It draws attention to their relative power in the global economy (their attractiveness as investment locations); aid dependence (and the extent to which they are subject to loan conditionalities); their degree of penetration by transnational capital; and their capacity to negotiate within global institutions. Political economy perspectives enable us to get at how the terms of ‘transition’ are set and by whom and in so doing, usefully check the assumption that transitions are made up of open ended choices. They offer an understanding of power and its effects on the terrain upon which transitions are negotiated among a range of domestic, regional and international and public and private actors enabling a better understanding of the emerging patterns of energy access and the (uneven) distribution of rising power investments in projects, innovation and infrastructure. In particular, IPE approaches draw attention to the forms of power that derive from control over the production, technology and finance and investment that will underpin a transition, visible in the influence of incumbent regimes as opposed to those entrepreneurs seeking to protect and promote particular niches. This sheds light on the uneven access to energy and the benefits of rising power investments in the energy sector since the interests of elites involved in making key decisions on energy investment, technologies and institutions do not align readily with those without energy access, or those who suffer the harmful consequences of extraction, processing, and consumption of fossil fuels, and yet are often excluded from the benefits of these processes. It also raises questions about state-capital-labour relations which usefully focuses attention on, for example, the role of trade unions representing the large numbers of workers employed in the mining and energy industries and the influence this may have on the speed and depth of transition away from fossil fuels [54] . In South Africa, for example, there are some important policy initiatives around local manufacturing content, job creation and black economic empowerment that are having a significant bearing on the nature of the country’s energy transition and emerging renewable energy landscapes. Our analysis thus seeks to examine the discourses, institutions and interests that shape energy transitions and energy policy. In so doing we build upon recent research [55] that has sought to understand the ways in which forms of power combine to determine the scope for climate compatible development in Kenya: discursive power (who gets to define what is clean, green and affordable; how are the energy needs of the poor represented and for whose benefit?); institutional power (where does power lie within and across government and how far is it reinforced or undermined by actors beyond the state, especially donors?) and material power (who controls the finance, technology and means of producing ‘clean energy’ and what power does that confer upon them to shape energy pathways?). Although complex state-market interactions are a key part of the focus here, our approach does not view states as the only, or even the dominant, actor in energy governance. Sub-state, inter-state, and supra-state actors, as well as non-state actors both market and non-market are also important. We thus seek to develop an analytical framework that is able to show how energy regimes are constituted through a dispersed ‘state’ that involves complex relationships between multiple actors and operates across borders and one that can account for the ever-growing role of transnational actors and emerging transnational spaces of south-south co-operation around clean energy. A focus on global production networks and value chains is also useful here in that it helps offset more macro-scale, geopolitical interpretations by taking an actor-centric approach to understanding the variegated, country and industry-specific development implications of south-south trade flows [39] particularly those around renewable energy (c.f. [23,21] . Work on the rising powers also helps to identify and contextualise the transnational spaces of transitions by attending to questions of geopolitics, diplomacy and international relations and in so doing enables us to get a better understanding of the discursive, institutional and material power behind China, Brazil and India’s energy diplomacy and private investments in Southern Africa’s energy systems. In terms of what is driving these investments (both state and private), there are emerging literatures on energy statecraft and diplomacy [22,62,72] that have usefully examined the investments that rising powers like Brazil are making in renewable energy [26] and which complement more traditional preoccupations with the political economy of resource diplomacy. Energy statecraft, for example, focuses on the ‘conditions for successful implementation of energy resources as an instrument of foreign policy’ [22: p. 4] , both to pursue energy security and commercial diplomacy. Brazil’s early engagements with Mozambique and investments in biofuels in particular clearly formed part of a global strategy for exporting Brazil’s domestic bio-ethanol programmes and building a global structure of supply and demand for what former President Lula strongly advocated as a ‘clean’ source of energy (Interview with representatives of the Ministry of Development, Industry and Trade, Brazil, April 2nd 2014). In this sense it is important to remember that energy is central to both the production and reproduction of geopolitical imaginaries of international relations and the ways in which the rising powers understand and narrate south-south co-operation around clean energy as part of a long history of progressive development collaboration (Interview with Africa Department Head, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Brazil, April 24th 2014). The growing literature on energy geographies can also be brought to bear in seeking to understand the geopolitics and political economy of energy transitions in Southern Africa. Geographers have shown that energy infrastructures, including electricity generation, transmission and distribution facilities, can be understood as sites of contestation and as spatial expressions or material articulations of dominant political-economic ideologies and geographic imaginaries. Prospects for new flows of energy bring together disparate social groups into conversations about allocation, costs/benefits and acceptable end uses whilst the development of energy infrastructure has significant ethical and socio-economic implications which are not diffused or experienced evenly across space [17] . Decisions about which resources to prioritise and where to build new infrastructure can thus (re)produce uneven economic development at regional scales [74] along with conditions of energy poverty at local and household scales. The energy geographies literature has also shown that energy production and use translates directly into control over space so that energy is an important physical medium through which to express state authority, to extend the reach of the state and to exert territorial control. It also shows that the attempted shift towards renewable energy is productive of new energy landscapes and new spatialities, some of which are highly contested, raising questions about which landscapes should be made and ultimately for whom. The political economy of energy infrastructure also needs to be understood in historical context. In Southern Africa and other parts of the Global South, energy regimes are shaped by histories of colonisation, apartheid, nationalism, state-led development and market-oriented liberalisation. This helps us to make sense of the path dependence that shapes the contemporary features of both country’s energy systems or the ways in which decisions taken in the past limit the options available today. The nature of an electricity system means that it “exhibits strong path dependencies due to the large investments made into grids and plants, perpetuating a mostly fossil fuel based system of electricity production and consumption” [34] and is therefore unable to adapt quickly to sudden changes. It is thus important that such energy investments are adequately historicised. Understanding which ‘niche’ technologies are supported or neglected in the course of transition, how power relations operate around the ‘regime’ and the extent to which incumbent power can successfully resist ‘landscape’ pressures requires a deeper understanding of the domestic political economy of South Africa and Mozambique. Work on the minerals-energy complex (MEC), for example, describes South Africa’s economic accumulation strategy, historically predicated on the relationship between mining, manufacturing and electricity, and also provides a framework of analysis for the country’s political economy [25] . The historical basis of the MEC is a regime of accumulation based on low cost state-owned electricity production (via the public utility Eskom), cheap labour and large-scale national and international corporate capital tightly bound to the energy and mining sector [67: p. 218] . As one of the world’s largest mining countries, South Africa’s dependence on historically abundant sources of low-cost coal for 96 percent of its electricity has resulted in a highly energy-intensive economy. This low-cost coal, coupled with the availability of low cost labour (a key legacy of apartheid), has led to the generation of electricity for minerals-based export-oriented industry which forms the basis of its ‘minerals-energy complex’ [25] . The apartheid era produced an electricity sector exclusively directed towards the consumption needs of industry and the elite, largely white, minority aimed at shoring up their power through energy independence amid isolation from the international community. This historical background is critical to understanding how the structural power of actors in the incumbent energy regime is used to shape and contest the prospects for alternatives such as renewable energy technologies, through, for example, control over market access for independent power producers. South Africa’s electricity system has been dominated until now by its monopoly utility, Eskom, while some 44 percent of the country’s electricity is consumed by its Energy Intensive User’s Group, whose 31 members include some of the world’s largest resource and mining conglomerates. Infrastructure provision in South Africa is also influenced by a history of racially determined socio-spatial differentiation. Though the country’s unprecedented post-apartheid expansion programme between 1994 and 2000 saw domestic connection rates rise from approximately 30 percent to 70 percent of the population KWh per month, millions of low-income houses – who account for no more than 5 percent of national electricity – do not have enough regular income to buy sufficient electricity, notwithstanding grid connections [11] , one third of the population still lack access to electricity, particularly in rural areas. Despite the free basic electricity tariff of 50 [50: p. 16] . This provision of highly subsidised electricity to multinational capital is the basis of what has been called ‘electric capitalism’ in the region [50] and has perpetuated a ‘colonial electrical geography’ where the needs and interests of elites and corporations are placed above those of households and communities. The MEC offers a way of understanding power and critical networks between South Africa’s financial sector, parastatals, government, the private sector and the country’s Industrial Development Corporation [28] . This contributes to an analysis of ‘the social forces of production’ over ‘technical solutions to the economics of transition’ [25: p. 4] . Such an approach permits an analysis of historical power relations, structural change and the interests of dominant actors and thus avoids reducing a complex debate to a technocratic perspective on governance or, in other words, a ‘policy fix’ [15: p. 5] . Despite considerable diversification in the electricity mix and a significant decline in the contribution that mining and minerals-beneficiation makes to the country’s economy, coal-based vested interests as key players in the minerals-energy complex still dominate at the level of supply and demand in electricity. In neighbouring Mozambique, a ‘troubled transition’ [1] from Marxism-Leninism to free market capitalism has also produced a very particular political economy that shapes the country’s energy sector. Historically there has been a heavy dependence on foreign donors and creditors who have played a key role in shaping and defining Mozambique’s development agenda. The post-war turn towards neo-liberalism and privatization has led to a proliferation of state capture and administrative corruption within the Frelimo party-state [57] where there is now arguably a greater concern with maintaining relationships of patronage and rent-seeking than with providing services to citizens [75] . Power remains heavily concentrated in Frelimo, which has increased its hold during the liberal period through successful monopolization of access to donors and international networks together with a privatization process and natural resources boom that has allowed it to further centralise wealth and power [66] . Frelimo has heavily manipulated the state power utility Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM) to achieve its own political objectives with electrification efforts closely shaped by geopolitical imaginaries and a desire to extend the reach of the state and to exert territorial control in remote regions. The development of the national electricity infrastructure and rural electrification efforts have often lacked transparency or been mired in allegations of corruption as projects have regularly been awarded to companies with links to the main political and economic elites [53] . Mozambique also has its own emergent MEC that builds on a long history of an economy based on an extractive system of capital accumulation and is currently pursuing a vision of development that is heavily centred on extractive industries (especially coal and gas) and energy-intensive mega-projects [45] . 4 Southern Africa ’s energy transitions: an integrated framework for analysis Within Mozambique and South Africa high-carbon and low-carbon pathways to development are being pursued in parallel and interconnected ways, so this is not a simple choice between pathways, but rather a case of multiple pathways emerging across a fragmented energy system that consists of multiple regimes. In this regard we engage with the socio-technical transitions framework not to produce a kind of yes/no assessment of the presence or absence of transitions but rather to understand the dynamics of niche development in the context of powerful regimes. In both Mozambique and South Africa the rising powers are playing a role in the continued entrenchment of high carbon pathways. India and China have been significant export markets for South African coal and even as attempts at alternative energy pathways are made there remain very substantial commitments to building new coal-fired power generation facilities as the heavy reliance on coal created by the MEC continues [5] . In Mozambique rising power interest in the energy sector has predominantly concentrated on securing access to fossil fuel resources through resource diplomacy following the recent discovery of significant coal and gas reserves [45] . In 2013 the Indian High Commission to Mozambique predicted ‘an inevitable competition for markets and [natural] resources between China and India’ but was confident that in Mozambique India will be able to ‘checkmate China’ [71] . Indeed, India has in recent years stepped up its diplomatic efforts around natural resources and renewable energy in Mozambique, signing a bilateral accord in October 2014 to enhance co-operation in the oil and gas sector followed by an MoU promoting co-operation in the renewables sector signed in October 2015 [48] . The struggle for access to Mozambique’s newly exploited offshore gas resources in Cabo Delgado province has also brought Chinese companies including the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), Sinopec and Huadian into direct competition with Indian firms such as ONGC Videsh and Oil India. These companies are also, however, in competition with actors from other emerging economies including South Korea’s Kogas, Mitsui of Japan and PTT of Thailand along with more established Western companies such as Anadarko and ENI [24] . With respect to coal, the Brazilian mining giant Vale has invested US$8 billion to date in coal mining and associated operations in Mozambique, whilst Indian corporations are also a growing presence, including Tata Steel, Jindal Steel and Power (JSPL) and International Coal Ventures Limited (ICVL). Many firms have pulled out or downgraded their operations due to the complex infrastructural challenges in transporting the coal for export along with plummeting global coal prices since 2013 (Interview with Manoj Gupta, Jindal Africa, October 29th 2013). Significantly, many of these foreign firms also plan to build coal-fired power stations linked with their mining operations that will feed excess power to the grid, further committing Mozambique to a high-carbon energy pathway. Echoing some of the concerns in the rising powers literature about the weaker standards of governance adopted by rising powers with regard to their investments in Africa [3] , civil society organizations have expressed concerns about the lack of transparency in the governance of extractive industries and about the social and environmental impacts of the coal rush including displacement and resettlement of local communities in mining areas [41] . Much of the critique centres on the Mozambican government’s failure to uphold its resource sovereignty, locally redistribute the wealth generated by hydrocarbon revenues, create jobs for local populations in coal-producing areas, or negotiate favourable terms with investors. There is also a risk that the emerging coal complex centred in Moatize, in Tete province, will become an extractive natural resource-based enclave with weak productive linkages to local enterprises, foreign ownership of capital, and export of goods with limited or no value added [10,12] . This emerging coal complex has thus become an important site of contestation in Mozambique’s energy landscape [16] and can be understood as a material articulation of Frelimo’s dominant political-economic ideology and its vision of development centred on extractive industries and energy-intensive mega-projects as a means to modernise the national economy. Such spaces are also a key part of Frelimo’s continued centralisation of wealth and power [66] . Energy companies are not, however, the only external and global actors that are part of the ‘landscape’ of socio-technical systems in Southern Africa. The competition between higher and lower carbon energy pathways is also influenced by global institutions, donors and broader economic developments that configure the landscape of energy politics in ways drawn attention to by the IPE literatures discussed above. In South Africa, finance and technical assistance from European bilateral donors, particularly Denmark and Germany, have been influential in the early stages of the renewable energy industry and have played a considerable role in project development, shaping policy, directing research and developing the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer’s Procurement Programme (RE IPPPP) for utility-scale privately generated renewable electricity. Prior to the introduction of this programme South Africa managed to preserve some developmental space by resisting pressures to liberalise its electricity sector and open up competition to private energy providers [7] . The RE IPPPP initiative has so far attracted R168-billion (US . The RE IPPPP initiative has so far attracted R168-billion (US$14bn) of private investment into the supply-stressed electricity sector, allocating approximately 6.5 GW of generation capacity, largely from wind, solar PV and concentrated solar power (CSP). Thus there are parallel and competing pathways being pursued both in terms of technology and the nature of how this technology should be procured—whether via the state utility Eskom or independent power producers 4bn) of private investment into the supply-stressed electricity sector, allocating approximately 6.5 GW of generation capacity, largely from wind, solar PV and concentrated solar power (CSP). Thus there are parallel and competing pathways being pursued both in terms of technology and the nature of how this technology should be procured—whether via the state utility Eskom or independent power producers [4] . RE IPPPP also requires that renewable energy developers meet criteria for socio-economic and community development and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). However, implementing these can be problematic. For instance, as one engineer working in the renewable industry stated in interview (November 5th 2013): “Meeting the economic commitments of the project can be a huge challenge…. not all developers will coordinate with each other over labour and socio-economic issues as the industry is too competitive”. There are thus particular state-capital-labour relations in South Africa shaping key policy domains such as energy and industry and the scope for their reform where, for example, trade unions have a powerful role in shaping the speed and depth of transition away from fossil fuels by protecting the large numbers of workers employed in the mining and energy industries or where the emphasis on black job creation and concerns about the need for local content and community development have significantly shaped the emerging low carbon transition. As one member of government stated in interview (November 28th 2013) “the holistic advantage to the country needs to be managed. If the company coming in from abroad is not comfortable with these criteria, then it will struggle”. South Africa’s attractiveness to investors, the size of the market and its strategic location in the region and low level of aid dependence, place it very differently to Mozambique in its ability to set the terms of its own transition and negotiate more favourable terms with donors and investors from Europe and increasingly the rising powers. Reflecting the high levels of aid dependence in Mozambique, off-grid rural electrification and grid extension has frequently been funded by grants and soft loans from European bilateral donors [59] who have played a key role in configuring the landscape of energy politics and closely shaped the Mozambican state’s capacity to pursue different renewable energy pathways. Thus far Mozambique has had a much lower degree of policy autonomy and developmental space around energy and consequently less capacity to withstand pressures from domestic, regional and international and public and private actors. This may be set to change in the years ahead as hydrocarbon revenues increasingly come online and as dependence on aid consequently decreases, affording the state more room for manoeuvre [59] . Despite the fact that RE IPPPP has been celebrated globally as a leading model for independent power procurement, and also for its progressive socio-economic development and community ownership requirements, ensuring universal energy access is not the main objective of commercial energy developers whose business models are determined by a desire for high returns over short time frames [6] . As one technical advisor for an engineering company stated (in interview, November 5th 2013) “it has become quite a competitive and commoditised industry now”. The Mozambican state has also recently increased the licensing and divestment of power generation operations to Independent Power Producers (IPPs) amid serious supply shortfalls, often with no competition or public tender, which have in many cases produced cheaper energy for large-scale industrial consumers, but raised costs for the majority [53] . In both cases there is thus a prioritisation of commercial providers of energy in ways which appear to have little to do with the expansion of energy access or increasing its affordability. As a result, the socio-economic benefits of the development of energy infrastructure are not being diffused or experienced evenly across the energy landscape, reinforcing the key question of whose energy needs are represented and acted upon in policy. What is also noticeable, however, mirroring international trends [47] , is that emerging market companies are also beginning to support renewable ‘niches’ alongside the more dominant role of European and US companies in South Africa’s wind and solar PV sector. The RE IPPPP process in South Africa provides one space for niche development. Chinese firms (including Yingli Green Energy, Suntech, Jinko Solar, Chint and Powerway) are involved as suppliers of solar PV technologies or of technological components. Indian company Suzlon and Chinese firms Guodian and Sinovel are also involved in engineering procurement and construction (EPC) and technology supply. India’s Tata Power and China’s Longyuan Power Group are additionally involved in joint ventures with South African companies in project development in the wind industry. Our research in South Africa thus highlights the importance of tracking emerging global value chains and production networks where rising power companies are bound up in wider transnational networks of construction firms, renewable energy development companies, technology providers and national and international finance and investment coalitions in complex value chains. There is no specific Chinese ‘go out’ government policy focused on promoting renewable energy companies. Instead it is the saturation of China’s domestic wind and solar power industries and the surplus of production capacity in China that is one of the main drivers pushing Chinese firms towards the South African market [63] . Chinese firms see in Southern African markets an opportunity to upgrade from equipment producers to project owners/operators and unlike their rivals from India and Brazil they can draw on extensive financial support and detailed market and political analyses available from quasi-state agencies like the China Development Bank, Exim and Sinosure [63] . Our interviews also indicated that Chinese investors are focusing on South Africa because they believe the political and economic risks in the country are negligible compared to other countries in Africa. Such was their confidence in the country some even rejected the export credit insurance cover available from Chinese export credit agencies: “Our company is confident with the investment environment in this country… The country’s economy is in good shape. But no other countries [in Africa] can provide such a favourable macro environment” (Interview with a Chinese wind farm investor in South Africa, April 11th 2014). Another significant factor was the perception that South Africa had a greater commitment to renewable energy than many other countries (including Mozambique). As one representative of a Chinese solar company put it: “We are always attracted by good policy and ambitious plans [for renewable energy].… That is a precondition as we couldn’t possibly go for a market where there is no special treatment for renewable energy” (Interview with senior manager from Chint, October 9th 2014). In Mozambique the rising powers are also beginning to play a role in supporting renewable niches, but on a much smaller scale compared to South Africa. Brazilian firms in particular initially played a significant role in the development of biofuels whilst the construction of Mozambique’s first ever solar PV module manufacturing plant in 2013 was funded by the Export-Import Bank of India (Interview with Fernando Namburete, FUNAE, August 8th 2014). These niche spaces, however, have failed to cultivate the economies of scale and scope to become competitive, lacking support from the wider energy landscape and regime. In part this is because there are multiple fractions of the state invested in different energy pathways in Mozambique, leading to the emergence of cleavages based upon competing fractions of both state and capital. As a result, there are significant differences in the resources and priority given to solar PV and mini-hydro as opposed to coal, gas and large-scale hydro where potential rents are higher and more easily captured by state elites and incumbent regime interests, the largest beneficiaries. It is also important to recognise the differences that exist within the state. Mozambique’s National Energy Fund ( Fundo de Energia − FUNAE) set up within the Ministry of Energy in 1997 has been addressing off-grid energy access and has a focus on renewable energy and rural (off-grid) electrification funded largely by donors, whilst other elements of the state apparatus, such as the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy (MIREME) and EDM working together with foreign mining and infrastructure companies, pursue hydrocarbon revenue streams, extractive industries and fossil-fuel based power generation. FUNAE’s concern with renewable energy has thus been somewhat under-resourced (relative to the pursuit of lucrative hydrocarbon revenues) and has frequently been seen as driven by the finance and priorities of development donors. Characterised by a history of colonial underdevelopment and following decades of civil war the socio-technical energy system of Mozambique has an extremely limited grid infrastructure. The state has consequently been pursuing a grid extension programme since 2009 which has been shaped by national geopolitical imaginaries and a desire to enhance state legitimacy and extend the reach of the state in remote regions. There is a particular political economy of electrification, however, largely focused on connecting urban district capitals with the main beneficiaries often being local elites, public employees, commercial agents and NGO officials with little wider benefit for the surrounding rural areas, despite the claims being made in official discourses about rural energy access [53] . Alongside the development of renewables and the recent extension of the centralised network, the Mozambican state is planning the construction of several large scale hydro-power projects which are likely to become an important part of the energy landscape in the years ahead. Many of these are being contested by civil society organizations, such as Justiça Ambiental! , which have expressed concerns about the lack of transparency and the social and environmental impacts including displacement and resettlement of local communities (Interview with Daniel Ribeiro, Justiça Ambiental! , October 23rd 2013). The distribution of impacts from energy production (who benefits and who experiences the burdens) relates to decision making processes (who participates and influences policy): hence questions of social and political power are central within Mozambique’s power sector. For some observers the overarching focus of recent energy and development discourses on hydroelectricity foments a powerful type of ‘post-colonial amnesia’ [42] given that some of the planned projects are just a short distance from Cahora Bassa, the construction of which during the late colonial period had significant implications in terms of population displacement, lost livelihoods and deteriorated ecosystems. Indeed, this focus on hydroelectricity, rather than opportunities for small-scale distributed renewables, appears to be the priority for some of the rising powers interested in Mozambique’s energy system. Chinese firms have undertaken feasibility studies around the potential for large-scale hydro-power projects and are also becoming involved in the construction of electricity transmission infrastructure in Mozambique. China State Grid has expressed intent to finance the controversial Mphanda Nkuwa dam and has an interest in the Cahora Bassa north central hydroelectric project along with a 46 percent stake in the US$2 billion Centre-South (CESUL) project to build a HVDC transmission line from the Zambezi Valley to Maputo (Interview with Andre Santos, African Development Bank, October 25th 2013). China Three Gorges has also expressed an interest in hydro-power plants in Mozambique along with the Brazilian construction company Camargo Corrêa. Mozambique has prioritised large-scale hydro partly as a result of the path dependencies created by Cahora Bassa which saw most of the electricity generated there exported to neighbouring countries (principally South Africa). The transfer across national borders of electric power has become an important source of revenue generation with MIREME arguing that electricity companies should be allowed to get involved in foreign trade and that Mozambique could not build a new dam based solely on its own electricity needs [2] . Indeed, Mphanda Nkuwa’s construction depends on Eskom’s commitment to buy most of its electricity [42] , neatly connecting the political economy of energy in Mozambique to South Africa’s minerals-energy complex and illustrating South Africa’s own rising power status. Mozambique’s major energy developments in coal, gas and hydroelectricity have thus been heavily shaped by elites involved in making key decisions on energy investment, technologies and institutions working together with fractions of international capital increasingly sourced from the rising powers. The generation of power by IPPs and the sale of electricity to regional markets is symptomatic of emerging forms of ‘electric capitalism’ [50] and arguably offers Mozambican elites much more lucrative opportunities for accumulation than do small-scale distributed renewable technologies [59] with significant implications for the speed and depth of energy transition and the (uneven) distribution of ‘rising power’ investments in projects, innovation and infrastructure. 5 This research was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) [Grant reference ES/J01270X/1].
Keywords
- Energy transitions
- Political economy
- Rising powers
- Southern Africa
