Financially-constrained solar development: A comparative analysis of urban fabrics and scalar expression in Portugal and Rajasthan

Abstract

Solar energy takes many varied forms in and beyond the urban infrastructure. Compared to large-scale plants, small-scale solar forms have received little attention, yet arguably hold more hope for just energy transitions by serving local needs close to energy demand while distributing benefits locally. These forms mark the contingent outcomes of struggles against rigid bureaucracies of energy infrastructure, and thus constitute the interface between distributed energy generation and electricity distribution and end-use, which are traditionally highly-regulated domains. Small-scale solar plants are new interventions in built environments imbued with historical and cultural meaning and shaped by sociotechnical practices of energy use and everyday life in cities and their peripheral spaces. This paper draws on comparative visual ethnographies of small-scale solar energy development in Jaipur and Jodhpur (in Rajasthan, India) and Lisbon (Portugal). Through engagement with the many forms solar plants take within and beyond the urban fabric in these financially-constrained contexts, I argue that small-scale solar development faces intractable structural barriers that limit its potential for rapidly scaling contributions to just transitions. These structural barriers are intrinsic to sectoral political economies that require not just techno-economic but institutional step-change, which visual ethnographies of urban political ecology can help inform and catalyse.