Author Archives: Jonathan Silver

We had a great response to our CFP on The contested politics of urban electricity networks: Insights from urban infrastructure studies for the RGS-IBG 2013. We have put together three sessions that extend geographically, empirically and theoretically in many directions around the issues identified in the CFP and look forward to the debates and discussions that will come out of these sessions.

Session One: Social movements and protest in the electric city

1.       Whose right to the electric city?

Jonathan Silver and Andrés Luque, Durham University, UK

2.       POWERed by People: Urban Crisis and Emergent Protest Practices in Athens

Georgia Alexandri and Venetia Chatzi, Harokopio University, Greece

3.       Divergent visions and competing strategies: Barcelona’s engineers and the solar guerrillas

Anne Massen, Eco Ltd, London

4.       (Re-)constructing urban infrastructure: civil society movements are claiming the grid

Arwen Colell and Luisa von Neumann-Cosel, BürgerEnergie Berlin eG i.G., Germany

5.       Beirut, metropolis of blackness – uneven geographies of electricity supply, protests and private informal electricity suppliers

Eric Verdeil, Université de Lyon, CNRS – Environnement Ville Société, France

Session Two: The uneven geographies of the electric city

1.       Hooked on electricity: Colonizing Palestine on the grid

Omar Jabary Salamanca, Ghent University, Belgium

 2.       Practices of electrification in the informal settlements of Delhi: Is urban planning necessary?

Laure Criqui, Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Sociétés  – LATTS, École des Ponts ParisTech, France

 3.       Splintering electricity networks and the splintering of inter-ethnic relations: Access to electricity in Romani settlements in Bulgaria

Rosalina Babourkova, Development Planning Unit, University College London, UK

 4.       The regularisation of energy supply in pacified favelas of Rio de Janeiro: A tool for constructing a “responsible consumer”?

Francesca Pilo    Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Sociétés  – LATTS, École des Ponts ParisTech, France

 5.       Powering segregation and inequality:  The development of electric utilities in eastern North Carolina

Conor Harrison, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

Session Three: Rewiring the electric city

1.       Government by communication: Making New York City’s electrical grid resilient, from the strikes to the unforeseen

Stephanie Wakefield, Department of Earth and Environmental Science, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, USA

 2.       Institutional factors affecting the development of smart grids

Semida Silveira  and Edgard Antunes Dias Batista, KTH Royal Institute of Technology Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

 3.       How discourses of decentralized energy infrastructure are created: Lessons from the city district of Hammarby Sjöstad

Arian Mahzouni, Department of Urban Planning and Environment, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden

 4.       Re-assembling the material: On the monstrous waste of urban infrastructure

Björn Berglund, Environmental Technology and Management, Linköping University, Sweden.

 5.       Re-wiring the electric city: capital, contracting and rekommunalization in post-reunification Berlin

Gareth Edwards, Department of Geography & Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews, UK

The contested politics of urban electricity networks: Insights from urban infrastructure studies

2013 RGS-IBG Annual Conference

Session organizers: Andrés Luque and Jonathan Silver (Durham University, UK)

This session seeks critical papers that unpack the ongoing politics across electricity networks in cities. The aim of the session is to draw attention to the political and political ecological dimensions shaping electricity networks and their current transformation. Cities across the global North and South are reimagining and redeploying their electricity networks in response to issues of climate change, resource constraints, the search for energy efficiency and the advent of smart digital technologies. Building on previous work that highlight the political nature of urban infrastructures (Graham and Marvin, 2001; McFarlane and Rutherford, 2008; Coutard and Rutherford, 2009; Swyngedouw, 2004) and uncover the uneven power relations embedded in the urbanization of nature through infrastructure (Kaika and Swyngedouw, 2000; Swyngedouw and Heynen, 2003), this session aims to explore new ways in which the urban infrastructure literature can contribute to the field of energy geographies, furthering its use for understanding urbanization processes.

We are interested in exploring urban electricity networks both theoretically and empirically. In doing this, we seek contributions that acknowledge how politics and practices (from the political economic to the everyday) shape urban energy networks, and reflect on the contested nature of the current processes of transformation in urban infrastructures. Some of the key questions we aim to collectively answer are:

·      – How the reconstitution of electricity networks through discourses on decentralized generation, ‘smart’ technologies and localized electricity markets are producing a new type of geographies of post-networked urbanism (Coutard and Rutherford, 2009).

·      – How historical processes of uneven urbanization contribute to current electricity network geographies and associated social relations (Jaglin, 2008; Kooy and Bakker, 2008).

·      – How urban electricity networks relate to infrastructural notions of informality, the incremental and the everyday (Simone, 2004) within and across post-colonial settings.

·      – What is the role of urban electricity networks in reinforcing, reflecting or reducing urban inequalities and shaping a splintered urbanism (Graham and Marvin, 2001).

·      – How wider theoretical debates around post-structural approaches to urban infrastructures, such as assemblage urbanism (McFarlane, 2011) or vital materialities (Bennett, 2010), can shape our understandings and conceptualizations of urban electricity networks.

Instructions for Authors:

Proposals for papers to be provided with title/short abstract/contact details to a.e.luque@durham.ac.uk or j.d.silver@durham.ac.uk by 6th February.

Event at African Centre for Cities

I’ll be speaking next Thursday at the African Centre for Cities about my research in Accra, Ghana.

All welcome. Details here

Literature such as the book 'After Tears' can help us understand contemporary energy issues

Contemporary fiction can help us better understand the world around us and I want to draw attention to the role of literature in constructing and acting as a conduit for discourses that scholars can use to critically engage with energy issues. Service delivery is a complex arena of debate in South Africa. The post-apartheid promise of water, housing and electricity for all has not materialized despite high levels of state intervention and evidence of significant efforts. Protests centered on service delivery have become ingrained into the political cultures of South Africa’s communities with the terrain of electricity access, supply and pricing being contested from many perspectives and creating anger and resentment. This excerpt from Niq Mhlongo’s ‘After Tears’  provides an excellent snapshot of these isuess of contestation around service delivery, revealingd discourses around political disillusionment, privitisation and the relationship betwen elites and the people in early 21st century South Africa.

You can buy the book here:

Advo or Kuzwayo is back in Soweto after leaving UCT without passing his law studies. Working out his next move, whilst remaining quiet about flunking, Advo is outside his home with his Zim(babwean) girlfriend Vee. Zero is a friend of Advo’s uncle who lives in a shack in the backyard………………

My conversation with Vee was disturbed by loud singing coming from outside. A group of people were toyi-toying along Old Potshefstroom. They were heading for the Stars Soccer Fields. Five minutes later I heard a loud knock at the door. It was Zero.

“The revolution will not be televised, Advo, Do you realise there’s no water or electricity in most of Chi, including at our house?” said Zero

“What?” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose.

I recalled that the switches were dead when I had come back from Naturena that morning. At the time I had thought it was about the usual problem with the old power station in Orlando East.

“Siriyasi, Advo, these capitalists have removed the cables. Ever since we voted for them they don’t give a fuck about us any more” Said Zero, anger registering in his face. “They claim that we are stealing electricity. To get reconnected we need to pay one thousand five hundred bucks. That’s why there’s an urgent meeting today. The residents are angy, Advo. I’ve never seen people as angry with the government.”

“Where’s the meeting?”

“At the Star Soccer Fields. We have to go there right now. The revolution will not be televised, kuzonyiwa vandag. I-government isijwayela amasimba! The government is taking us for shit! This is Msawawa, our matchbox city, and we’ll show them like we showed the apartheid government before them.”

I looked at Vee. “I won’t be long,” I said.

“No, take your time, I’ll have time to decide where to put these pictures,” she said, as I walked out of the office with Zero.

* * *

ANTI-PRIVITIZATION FORUM (APF)

SOWETO ELECTRICITY CRISIS COMMITTEE
HIV/Aids + PREPAID = 100% DEATH RATE

declared the three red banners that had been hung from the crossbar of a goal at one end of the Stars Soccer Fields. Approximately five hundred people had already gathered and there was also six or seven police vans. Zero and I mingled with the angry crowd. A woman was busy talking on a loudspeaker; she was standing on an oil drum that had been converted into a makeshift stage and placed on the penalty spot.

“We say away with the installation of prepaid meters, away”

“Away!” responded the crowd, their fists also raised in the air.

“We say that six thousand litres of free water from the government is not enough. My own family consumes that ration in just five days comrades, because there are twenty-two of us living in one house. I’m unemployed. How does the government think I will pay for water for the remainder of the month?” continued the woman.

“You’re right, comrade!” we shouted.

“We say down with the installation of prepaid electricity, down!”

“Down!” we responded.

“Water is life. comrades! We used to pay cheaper flat rates for water and electricity during apartheid. Why do we have to have this expensive  prepaid with a black ANC government? Why are we, the poor people, discriminated against by our own government?”

“Viva, comrade!”

“We must boycott the local government elections comrades because its clear now that we voted them into power for the second time their campaign was based on a set of false promises. They are only interested in exchanging the riches of this country with white people.”

“Yes, comrade” the people shouted.

“These politicians talk like angels when they need our votes, but behave like chimpanzees once they’ve got them. We can’t sit back and watch them destroy our lives by removing water and electricity. In the past we’ve fought and defeated the monster of apartheid, comrades. Amandla, comrades, amandla!”

“Amandla!”

“Now, we’re face with the monster of capitalism here in the township. It’s time for this government to deliver on their promises!

Solar feed in tariff decreases will make it harder for this technology to develop in South Africa and threaten wider alternative energy generation strategies

Renewable energy advocates and supporters suffered a set back in South Africa this week as the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) published its new energy feed in tariffs with a significant decrease in rates up to 2013. Using new calculations based on falling inflation debt and a stronger international exchange rate the regulators actions have called considerable turbulence in the renewable energy sector and threaten to disrupt emerging projects across the country. The 15 percent decrease in the feed in tariff rate will hit solar power with a fall from 2.09 Rand to 1.96 Rand kWh, with wind dropping from 1.25 Rand to 0.95 Rand kWh and small hydro tariffs also hit.

The establishment of the tariffs around two years ago was greeted by the renewable sector as a chance to develop alternative energy generation beyond the coal sector which dominates electricity generation in South Africa. Yet over these two years the signing of power purchasing agreements has been limited and its seems that the renewable sector has needed time to develop business plans, find funding and attract investors. This work is now in jeopardy and a period of reflection and revision will take place up to the tariff review public hearings in May with the target for a rapid increase in renewable energy generation becoming more difficult..

Between 27th February and 3rd March the Local Climate Solutions 2011 Congress took place at the Cape Town Convention Centre hosted by ICLEI and the City of Cape Town. A declaration by over 50 African city governments aimed at the COP17 meeting in Durban later this year seeks to provide a platform for recognition for cities and towns across the continent as important actors in climate change adaption and mitigation especially around energy issues. You can read the statement and explore more about the conference here www.locs4africa.iclei.org. After four days of working at LOCS there was much to commend about the conference and I’d like to draw attention to some of comments from speakers…

The conference began with an opening speech by ICLEI Secretary General Mr Konrad Otto-Zimmerman who set out the global challenge and the role for cities by asking “Who is safeguarding the world’s climate? Just national governments?”. Former President of United Cities and Local Government, Father Smagaliso Mkhatshwa suggested that only through Africa uniting could it tackle climate change, “The African struggle of anti-colonization shows that united action works. Freedom from Apartheid was supported by brothers from across the continent. We need to carry this unity through into economic development and climate change. We have to overcome this as without unity we stand no chance. The African Union needs to be more than symbolic as we will be climate changes worst victims… This is a question of justice”. Mayor Obed Mlaba of eThekwini Municiaplity (Durban) jokingly suggested the answer to climate change action may lay with a particular course of action, “Who is refusing to do what? Maybe we should speak to our young people and see them do it like those in the North [Africa]” And finally Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International wanted to know what has happened to all the pledged money for adaption and energy infrastructure development in Africa cities; “We are not asking for charity but to pay your [global North] climate debt. Out of the $30 billion fast track money pledged at COP15 how much has been spent? Nothing”.

The work toward COP17 continues and it seems that Africa cities are coming together to present a united front for Durban in December.

The workshops included photographic work around Durham and class based reflections

How do young people think about energy? This was the question asked at the first of a number of photographic workshops scheduled to take place in the UK, Ghana and South Africa.

In June 2010 the two classes of Year 6 from St Margarets school were given cameras and ask to consider, through photography, their ideas about energy in Durham and their daily lives. Some of the pupils work is captured in this book and includes their photographs, ideas and questions about energy.

The photography work was followed up by a class trying to help the pupils answer some questions, choose their favorite pictures and draw some responses. This work is part of a public engagement programme with the Durham Energy Institute.

Thanks to all the pupils. You can view the book online or download (3MB) by clicking on the image.