Ivan Nygaard

• PhD
• Senior Researcher at Technical University of Denmark

The debate on the benefits of renewable electrification in late industrializing economies has mostly focused on improved electricity access and climate mitigation arguments. The literature pays less attention to understanding the opportunities for sustainable industrialization. This paper contributes to the latter with insights from a case study of...

Auctions for renewable energy support allocation are on a triumphant global advance. We compare performance of renewable energy auctions in terms of effectiveness (realisation rate and period) and efficiency (price outcomes) from two world regions: South Africa and European countries (Germany, France, the Netherlands). We develop an assessment fram...

Motivation Research on global value chains (GVCs) has tended to overlook the agency of the local firm when it comes to processes of upgrading. Purpose We attend to this knowledge gap by exploring the relationship between the business strategies and upgrading pathways of 14 firms operating in the value chain for solar systems in Kenya. Methods and...

We are observing a significant increase in the deployment of large scale solar and wind technologies in the global south, and it is therefore a strategically and academically important focus of inquiry to understand context-specific spaces for locally-embedded actors to initiate energy transitions. This paper examines the linkages between the energ...

While services are an essential element in the global production, trade and consumption of manufactured goods, limited research has been conducted on the role of services in studies of global value chains (GVCs). Recently, however, an emerging literature on the ‘servicification’ of manufacturing in GVCs has evolved, most of which involves aggregate...

This article utilises a GVC analytic framework to analyse the wind energy value chain in South Africa and its impact on localisation of goods and services. Its theoretical contribution highlights governance as dependent on system integration dynamics, with lead firms operating as system integrators. The empirical analysis focuses on the interplay b...

One longstanding strand of research in the development studies literature has concerned itself with the development of innovation capabilities in developing-country firms. As most of this literature focuses on domestic firms, foreign-owned firms, such as subsidiaries of multinational companies (MNC), have received much less attention. In this paper...

https://unepdtu.org/new-report-out-local-value-capture-from-the-energy-transition-insights-from-the-solar-pv-industry-in-kenya/ This report aims to bring attention to the local companies operating in the solar PV market in Kenya and the ways in which they became competitive in a market dominated mainly by international companies while also operat...

Policy recommendation from the TENTRANS project

Competitive bidding programmes, or auctions, are becoming the dominant method for procuring utility-scale renewable energy generation capacity and have coincided with significant cost reductions of renewable energy (RE) technologies. The use of price in auctions as the main awarding criterion has been criticized for apparently leading to market con...

Private mini-grid developers, which deliver power to rural communities in developing countries through for-profit business models, represent an alternative organisational model compared to traditional state-led, donor-led or community-driven models of rural electrification. However, as the ‘private model’ covers many different ways of doing busines...

Given the increasing cost-competiveness of renewable energy (RE) technologies, competitive auction schemes have increasingly been adopted in recent years across various developed and developing countries. Local content requirements (LCRs) are frequently used as part of RE auction schemes to promote local industrial development. In this paper, we pr...

This paper utilises a combination of a political economy approach and a GVC framework to analyse the dynamics of the wind energy value chain in South Africa. The paper focuses on the complex intertwined interplay between energy and industrial policy and shows how they negatively impacted on efforts to increase localisation of domestic manufacturing...

The expected increase in the disposal of off-grid solar e-waste (SEW) in the Global South is potentially the dark side of a promising innovation. We suggest placing research aimed at identifying appropriate schemes for the collection and recycling of SEW within a conceptual framework that builds on the literature on environmental upgrading in globa...

Component production in the renewable energy (RE) sector, specifically of solar PV and wind turbine components, has been localised across various countries in Africa as part of the increasing diffusion of these RE technologies over the past decade. Local factories have been established in spite of ever cheaper world market prices for RE technologie...

Given the increasing cost-competiveness of renewable energy (RE) technologies, competitive auction schemes have increasingly been adopted in recent years across various developed and developing countries. Local content requirements (LCRs) are frequently used as part of RE auction schemes to promote local industrial development. In this paper, we pr...

This special issue focusses on the now rapidly growing solar photovoltaics markets across various geographies and scales in Africa. Herein we summarise the contributions of the component papers and position them within the context of the sustainable energy access literature. We argue that there is an urgent need for greater attention to the neglect...

This report is issued by the Kenya Miniwind project funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark through the Danida Market Development Partnerships. The project aims to explore and develop the market for a partly locally produced kW wind turbine to be integrated into a PV mini-grid for rural electrification in order to reduce the cost of el...

Given the growing interest in the ability of the private sector to contribute to the goal of providing universal access to energy in developing countries, this study sets out to investigate the practices and business approaches of private actors in the emerging niche of private mini-grid development in Kenya. The paper's analytical focus is on how...

An increasing number of studies have analysed the scope for, and the barriers to, transitions toward sustainability in the context of developing countries building on analytical perspectives from the sustainability transitions literature. This paper introduces a special issue on sustainability transitions in developing countries, which takes stock...

In Senegal, considerable development assistance has been allocated to addressing the problem of repeated flooding in urban areas, involving changing thematic objectives, from short-term disaster relief to wide-ranging sanitation and drainage programmes. In spite of these numerous flood management interventions, the number of flood victims in Senega...

The article draws on the multi-level perspective (MLP) and global value chain (GVC) frameworks to analyse the drivers and trajectories of foreign private investment in biofuel production in Ghana. It is based on a narrative of the evolution of a niche for jatropha production in Ghana in the period 1995-2016 including company case studies. The facto...

Installed wind capacity in Africa has grown rapidly the last few years, and by late 2016 had reached about 4.8 GW. However, so far few investments have been made in inland localities due to the generally lower wind potential. This paper therefore explores if and to what extent it is possible to establish economically feasible wind-power plants in c...

The traditional model of rural electrification in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) mainly involves donor and government-supported programs. Recently, however, a rapid and significant increase has occur¬red in the sale of pico-scale solar products throug¬hout SSA. This development is driven by an increa¬sing number of private firms supplying pico-scale sola...

Biomass from agricultural residues, especially lignocellulosic biomass, is not only seen as a sustainable biomass source for the production of electricity, but increasingly as a resource for the production of biogas and second generation biofuel in developing countries. Based on empirical research in an irrigated rice-growing area, Office du Niger,...

The paper presents a case study of the enabling and constraining factors for establishing an assembly factory for PV panels in Senegal. Within the last 5-6 years the market for both small and large scale PV has rapidly increased in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) and to stimulate and to service these markets assembly factories for PV panels has been estab...

The aim with this guidebook is to provide practical and operational guidance on how to assess the barriers to identified technologies in the countries concerned, and on how to address and overcome these barriers through different types of measures. The guidebook feeds into the process of the preparation of TAPs based on the measures that have been...

As Ghana's economy grows, the choice of future energy paths and policies in the coming years will have a significant influence on its energy security. A Renewable Energy Act approved in 2011 seeks to encourage the influx of renewable energy sources in Ghana's energy mix. The new legal framework combined with increasing demand for energy has created...

This paper investigates how African governments are considering supporting and promoting the diffusion of solar PV. This issue is explored by examining so-called ‘technology action plans (TAPs)’, which were main outputs of the Technology Needs Assessment project implemented in 10 African countries from 2010 to 2013. The paper provides a review of t...

The strong focus in climate negotiations on the transfer and diffusion of technologies as a means to mitigate and adapt to climate change has entailed various programs to promote the transfer and diffusion of climate technologies, including the Technology Needs Assessment project (TNA). Despite the technology focus in the project, practice shows th...

In most African countries the greater part of the population has no access to electricity, and many have only limited or no access to cleaner and more modern fuels such as kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or natural gas. 600 million Africans have no access to electricity. Unless dedicated national efforts are implemented with major internati...

Previous research on the diffusion of solar PV in Africa has mainly focused on solar home systems (SHS) in individual countries and thus overlooked developments in other PV market segments that have recently emerged. In contrast this paper adopts a regional perspective by reviewing developments in supportive policies, donor programs and diffusion s...

Morocco has become known for being an example of a well‐performing utility‐led rural electrification program, but so far little independent research has scrutinized this extraordinary case. Based on a critical review of the available literature, this study attempts to draw a picture of the evolution of rural electrification in Morocco, the policies...

Solar power in Africa is on its way to becoming a market-based commodity, thus escaping the niche for individual electricity supply that is mainly supported by international donor organisations. Significant reductions in the cost of photovoltaic (PV) panels and a 400 percent increase in oil prices since the 1990s have changed the competiveness of s...

The economic development in emerging economies in Southeast Asia has significantly increased the use of fossil fuel based energy. This has severe implications for global climate change, and against this background, scholars within the sustainable transition tradition have taken an interest in addressing how transitions towards more sustainable deve...

Recent studies have found that further development of the MLP is needed to conceptualise and empirically assess the role of transnational linkages in niche development. This paper explores the factors that may explain the effect of twenty years of donor interventions as one form of transnational linkage in promoting the development of a palm oil bi...

The concept of the multifunctional platform for rural energy access has increasingly been supported by donors in five West African countries since 1994. While it is often referred to as a highly successful concept, recent reviews and interviews with local stakeholders in Mali and Burkina Faso indicate that the high aspirations to be found in projec...

Climate change is a major concern, and climate change mitigation measures are currently high on the policy agenda. In 2007 the European Union (EU) made decisions both on binding targets to be reached by 2020 for CO2 emissions and for a minimum share of energy consumption produced by renewable energy. Increased access to electricity is a major conc...

There is a body of literature showing that donor-supported institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are often captured by local elites, but this literature rarely touches upon whether elite capture is contingent on institutions. However, if this is the case, some institutions may provide political leverage for weaker groups, while others may sustai...