Small-scale hydropower in Africa: Socio-technical designs for renewable energy in Tanzanian villages

By H. Ahlborg, Martin Sjöstedt. 2015

132 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In this article, we explore the process of economic change following the NGO-led implementation of a small-scale off-grid hydropower system in Tanzania. We examine how the implementing actor deals with economic challenges and local ownership in order to achieve sustainable electricity supply. The qualitative case study shows that the NGO, ACRA-CCS, has overcome a number of constraints, which are sometimes associated with donor funding. This has been achieved by having multiple donors, an integrated approach and a longer presence. The 'logic' of implementation included active enhancement of productive electricity use, community services and benefits. As a result of these actions, the customer base grew quickly, rather than it taking many years to develop. The case illustrates the process whereby an off-grid system becomes economically viable. Local ownership has led to the project becoming an arena for community collaboration and problem solving, and creating values such as effective load management and protection of infrastructure. We suggest that attention should be given to possible public private community partnerships (PPCPs)-involving communities as crucial partners. The choice of a socio-technical system perspective was fruitful and provided crucial insights into how different factors manifested, interacted and played out in practice.

Subfields: Political Science and International Relations, Pollution, Safety Research

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/73e18656945fa45b159d67171811cb8882b30fe7

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Pollution

1. C. Njiru
2. S. Letema
3. Arica Crootof
4. H. Ahlborg

In Safety Research

1. C. Njiru
2. S. Letema
3. H. Ahlborg

Citations in the corpus

• Energy Poverty and Its Implication on Standard of Living in Kirinyaga, Kenya (2018, background): “However, despite the fact that electricity can cause societal change by providing new activities and services, social and economic development that improves quality of life and improves livelihoods of rural populations does not always occur [43].”
• Bringing Technology into Social-Ecological Systems Research—Motivations for a Socio-Technical-Ecological Systems Approach (2019, background): “In our studies of electricity generation and distribution networks, local topography, rainfall patterns, termites, winds, lightning, temperatures, soil erosion, and forest vegetation type influence the design, maintenance, and functionality of power plants and grids [82,83].”
• Governing the transition to renewable energy: A review of impacts and policy issues in the small hydropower boom (2017, background): “SHP has been found to be a cost-effective way to promote rural electrification (Ahlborg and Sjöstedt, 2015), and local grids are documented as offering more stable electricity prices than those of national grids that are subject to market fluctuations (Ardizzon et al., 2014; Kaunda et al., 2012b;…”