Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-1-2013
Abstract
Africa has abundant energy resources; however, it is estimated that no more than 30% of its population has access to reliable and sustainable grid electricity. Furthermore, only 50% of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are expected to have universal access to electricity by 2050. Literatures identify affordability, financing mechanisms, and policy instruments as key factors for the performance of renewable energy projects. Our research data has revealed that the performance of renewable energy systems cannot be viewed or determined in isolation (contextual reduction) from the social system of the host community. Furthermore, the performance of renewable energy projects is significantly influenced or explained by knowledge and memory production at the individual and community level in concert with connectedness, making a difference, community based organization engagement, transitions engagement, localization, synthesized and contextualized innovations, modular system design, maximization, and discovery, while the importance of affordability is nuanced from current literature in our findings.
Keywords
research and development projects, renewable energy, Weatherhead School of Management, performance, nested complexity, connectedness, transitions engagement.
Rights
© The Author(s). This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Department/Center
Design & Innovation
Recommended Citation
Haile, Yohannes, "Energy Development in Africa and the Performance of Renewable Energy Projects" (2013). Student Scholarship. 191.
https://commons.case.edu/studentworks/191