Sowing the seeds of change: Policy feedback and ratcheting up in South African energy policy

More ambitious and stringent policy intervention is required to accelerate the transition to renewable energy technologies. The ratcheting-up of policy ambition hinges on the political feasibility of policy change. Positive policy feedback can, in theory, enhance the political feasibility of ratcheting-up by creating pro-change constituencies and policy learning. To analyze the empirical mechanisms through which policy feedback operates, in this study, we analyze two energy policy instruments in South Africa. We examine how the Renewable Energy Independent Power Procurement Program (REIPPP), a renewable energy auction program for niche support, affected the re-design of the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), a central energy planning instrument. We use a qualitative case study approach, drawing on a large dataset of policy documents, public consultation responses and expert interviews. We show that REIPPP, through mechanisms of largely positive interpretive and resource feedback, has increased the political feasibility of more ambitious, pro-renewable energy planning in IRP. Our case thus demonstrates positive political feedback from the market creation to the central planning policy instrument. The findings suggest that the temporal sequencing of (re-designing) policy instruments can, under certain conditions, enable dynamic ratcheting up of energy policy mixes and thus sow the seeds for major policy change.