| dc.description.abstract | Renewable energy transitions provide promising solutions to improve livelihoods of one-billion people in remote areas without access to electricity, whilst mitigating negative impacts of global warming. Yet, the promotion of decentralised renewable energy systems faces challenges. Theoretically, scholars are struggling to combine European-based transition theories with global South-oriented development approaches. Practically, users struggle to adopt foreign technologies and face financial and managerial obstacles to establish renewable energy markets. Both theoretical and practical fields point to the importance of newly-formed institutional structures to locally embed renewable energy projects, pursued in what scholars call experimental niches. Yet, empirical research on how they could effectively do so is lacking.
Therefore, this research addresses the question: How can newly-formed institutional structures contribute to local societal embedding of renewable energy niche experiments in remote developing contexts? This question is answered through the lens of a case study of a multi-actor renewable energy programme on a remote Indonesian island. Qualitative data was gathered to analyse the roles of three newly-formed institutional structures - a cooperative, social enterprise, and private service company – that offer solar, micro-hydro, and biogas technologies. The analysis was guided by a novel literature-derived framework, including insights from strategic niche management and learning-based development approaches.
Findings show that the formation of a complex network – consisting of various regional institutions that work with local agents - is paramount for local embedding of the renewable energy niche. First, the network serves the function of an intermediary platform, connecting NGO resources with vulnerable people in remote communities. Second, the network is strengthened by trust-based and complementary relations amongst local institutions that stimulate collaboration. Third, this complementary network enables market creation that targets various consumer segments, by offering a range of technologies through different distribution points. Yet, it proves more difficult for local agents to stimulate participation of the population. Fostering bottom-up learning processes is found crucial to ensure proper social configurations of foreign technologies. The thesis concludes that the formation of institutional structures requires extra attention to their management capacities, to promote social learning. Overall, the newly-formed institutions are in the key position to make renewable energy niches locally embedded. This research makes a first attempt to outline the ‘right’ building blocks of institutional structures, that benefit both niche development and inclusive participation. | |
