Dreaming of a European Saharan Sun : A political ecology of big solar in Africa

• In Event: Climate Technologies and Unintended Consequences 2

Abstract

Given its viability for small-scale applications, solar power has often been proffered as an exemplar of Schumacher’s ‘appropriate technology.’ As an opportunity for Africa, and other parts of the developing world, to leap-frog modernist grid-based electricity initiatives towards village-level energy revolutions; as an opportunity to create the space for locally controlled, owned and operated energy systems. And while this solar revolution might well be occurring in some contexts, the story of solar power in Africa is not so straightforward. Technologies and their application are ultimately shaped by a whole range of political economic dynamics, and therefore it is naïve to assume that newer ‘green technologies’ might somehow eschew the power dynamics of geopolitical energy production. Indeed, solar in Africa is increasingly not just seen as a panacea for African rural electricity (in)access dilemmas, but also as a solution to European energy supply woes. This has been exemplified by two recent proposals, one by the company Desertec in 2009, and another by TuNur in 2017, to set up a solar power megaproject in the Saharan Desert that would export electricity to Europe. Thus, facilitated by the green energy revolution, a European neo-colonial gaze is being fixated on the African Saharan Sun as a potential commodity to abstract into Europe’s energy market. Building on recent ‘energy justice’ academic literature, I explore the socio-political dimensions of these European Saharan Sun megaproject dreams, asking who will be the winners and who will be losers when ‘big solar’ comes to Africa?

Author

• Paul Munro, University of New South Wales