Electrical Hybridizations in Cities of the South: From Heterogeneity to New Conceptualizations of Energy Transition

Abstract

ABSTRACT This issue addresses the hybridization of urban electricity configurations in cities of the Global South. The hybridization process is shaped by the interplay of two infrastructural trends that transform cities, the patchy and limited extension of the conventional grid and the widespread socio-technical heterogeneity that recent research has highlighted. The case studies presented in the issue vary according to two main criteria. First, they straddle a wide variety of urban settlements, from city-center and relatively wealthy districts to poor areas and urbanizing peripheries. They also take into consideration various stages in the development of the grid and their uneven levels of service, between dynamic deployment pushed by state techno-politics and situations of regress or even collapse, forcing users to adapt. Two cross-cutting results emerge. First, the widespread and ever extending heterogeneity does not eliminate the grid but transforms it through various material and institutional interfaces and intermediations aiming at securing energy supply and operations. Second, the process makes way for an increased presence of private actors. These trends leave a twofold question unanswered. How and with which policies and tools to govern the hybridized energy configurations in order to promote energy justice and to enable clean energy transitions?