Financially constrained solar development: Urban fabrics and beyond

Keywords: solar transitions; energy governance; financial constraints; sustainability transitions; urban ethnography
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Solar energy takes many varied forms in and beyond the urban infrastructure. Compared to large-scale plants, small-scale solar forms have received little attention, yet arguably hold more hope for just energy transitions by serving local needs close to energy demand while distributing benefits locally. These forms mark the contingent outcomes of struggles against rigid bureaucracies of energy infrastructure as the interface between distributed energy generation and electricity distribution and consumption, traditionally highly regulated domains. They also constitute new interventions in built environments imbued with historical and cultural meaning and shaped in the sociotechnical practices of energy use and everyday life in cities and their peripheral spaces. This paper draws on comparative visual ethnographies of small-scale solar energy development in Jaipur (in Rajasthan state of India) and Lisbon (Portugal). Through engagement with the many forms solar plants take within and beyond the urban fabric in these financially constrained contexts, I argue that small-scale solar development faces intractable structural barriers that limits its potential to be rapidly scaled as a contributor to just transitions. These structural barriers are intrinsic to sectoral political economies that require institutional, not just techno-economic, step-change.