IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/oxford/v38y2022i2p237-259..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How can South Africa advance a new energy paradigm? A mission-oriented approach to megaprojects

Author

Listed:
  • Antonio Andreoni
  • Kenneth Creamer
  • Mariana Mazzucato
  • Grové Steyn

Abstract

Green transition is a ‘wicked’ problem in that it is complex, systemic, interconnected, and urgent. In this paper we advance a ‘mission-oriented’ approach to reconceptualize energy megaprojects within a systemic, cross-sectoral, and challenge-driven policy framework for energy transition. This approach is operationalized through a discussion of project-level policy instruments including directional public finance, public procurement, and several types of conditionality. These instruments are geared towards shaping markets and industrial supply chains for green transition, and managing risks and rewards associated with energy megaprojects. We also look at the opportunities offered by a more decentralized energy system and the importance of building up state capacity and green coalitions supporting energy transition. We discuss this mission-oriented approach through a deep dive on the South African experience of energy megaprojects with a focus on the restructuring of its public utility, Eskom, as well as opportunities for sustainable industrialization.

Suggested Citation

  • Antonio Andreoni & Kenneth Creamer & Mariana Mazzucato & Grové Steyn, 2022. "How can South Africa advance a new energy paradigm? A mission-oriented approach to megaprojects," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 38(2), pages 237-259.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:oxford:v:38:y:2022:i:2:p:237-259.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oxrep/grac007
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Van de Graaf, Thijs & Sovacool, Benjamin K., 2014. "Thinking big: Politics, progress, and security in the management of Asian and European energy megaprojects," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 16-27.
    2. Dani Rodrik, 2014. "Green industrial policy," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 30(3), pages 469-491.
    3. Mariana Mazzucato & Caetano C.R. Penna, 2016. "Beyond market failures: the market creating and shaping roles of state investment banks," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 305-326, October.
    4. Arent, Douglas & Arndt, Channing & Miller, Mackay & Tarp, Finn & Zinaman, Owen (ed.), 2017. "The Political Economy of Clean Energy Transitions," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198802242.
    5. Fran Tonkiss, 2015. "Afterword: Economies of infrastructure," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2-3), pages 384-391, June.
    6. Ansar, Atif & Flyvbjerg, Bent & Budzier, Alexander & Lunn, Daniel, 2014. "Should we build more large dams? The actual costs of hydropower megaproject development," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 43-56.
    7. Cristina Peñasco & Laura Díaz Anadón & Elena Verdolini, 2021. "Systematic review of the outcomes and trade-offs of ten types of decarbonization policy instruments," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 11(3), pages 257-265, March.
    8. Rasmus Lema & Xiaolan Fu & Roberta Rabellotti, 2020. "Green windows of opportunity: latecomer development in the age of transformation toward sustainability," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 29(5), pages 1193-1209.
    9. Mariana Mazzucato & Gregor Semieniuk, 2017. "Public financing of innovation: new questions," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(1), pages 24-48.
    10. Ha‐Joon Chang & Antonio Andreoni, 2020. "Industrial Policy in the 21st Century," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 51(2), pages 324-351, March.
    11. Gregory, Julian, 2020. "Governance, scale, scope: A review of six South African electricity generation infrastructure megaprojects," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    12. Dominique Foray, 2018. "Smart specialization strategies as a case of mission-oriented policy—a case study on the emergence of new policy practices," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 27(5), pages 817-832.
    13. Mowery, David C. & Nelson, Richard R. & Martin, Ben R., 2010. "Technology policy and global warming: Why new policy models are needed (or why putting new wine in old bottles won't work)," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(8), pages 1011-1023, October.
    14. Antonio Andreoni & Ha-Joon Chang & Mateus Labrunie, 2021. "Natura Non Facit Saltus: Challenges and Opportunities for Digital Industrialisation Across Developing Countries," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 33(2), pages 330-370, April.
    15. Rainer Kattel & Mariana Mazzucato, 2018. "Mission-oriented innovation policy and dynamic capabilities in the public sector," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 27(5), pages 787-801.
    16. Tonkiss, Fran, 2015. "Afterword: economies of infrastructure," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86717, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Veiko Lember & Rainer Kattel & Tarmo Kalvet (ed.), 2014. "Public Procurement, Innovation and Policy," Springer Books, Springer, edition 127, number 978-3-642-40258-6, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Singh, Mudit Kumar, 2023. "What is state capacity and how does it matter for energy transition?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    2. Eduardo Navarro-Bringas & Godawatte Arachchige Gimhan Rathnagee Godawatte, 2024. "Net-Zero Considerations within the Delivery of Major AEC Projects in the UK: A Thematic Analysis of the Key Challenges for Project Managers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-24, September.
    3. Odeh Al-Jayyousi & Hira Amin & Hiba Ali Al-Saudi & Amjaad Aljassas & Evren Tok, 2023. "Mission-Oriented Innovation Policy for Sustainable Development: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(17), pages 1-21, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Janssen, Matthijs J. & Abbasiharofteh, Milad, 2022. "Boundary spanning R&D collaboration: Key enabling technologies and missions as alleviators of proximity effects?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    2. Odeh Al-Jayyousi & Hira Amin & Hiba Ali Al-Saudi & Amjaad Aljassas & Evren Tok, 2023. "Mission-Oriented Innovation Policy for Sustainable Development: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(17), pages 1-21, August.
    3. Mariana Mazzucato & Rainer Kattel & Josh Ryan-Collins, 2020. "Challenge-Driven Innovation Policy: Towards a New Policy Toolkit," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 421-437, June.
    4. Janssen, Matthijs J. & Abbasiharofteh, Milad, 2022. "Boundary spanning R&D collaboration: Key enabling technologies and missions as alleviators of proximity effects?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 180.
    5. Ziesemer, Thomas, 2019. "The impact of mission-oriented R&D on domestic and foreign private and public R&D, total factor productivity and GDP," MERIT Working Papers 2019-047, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    6. Ioanna Kastelli & Lukasz Mamica & Keun Lee, 2023. "New perspectives and issues in industrial policy for sustainable development: from developmental and entrepreneurial to environmental state," Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 1-25, April.
    7. Mariana Mazzucato, 2018. "Mission-oriented innovation policies: challenges and opportunities," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 27(5), pages 803-815.
    8. Dominique Foray, 2022. "The Economics of Incomplete Plan -on Conditions, Procedures and Design of Future Mission- Oriented Innovation Policies," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 243(4), pages 123-146, December.
    9. Wiarda, Martijn & Sobota, Vladimir C.M. & Janssen, Matthijs J. & van de Kaa, Geerten & Yaghmaei, Emad & Doorn, Neelke, 2023. "Public participation in mission-oriented innovation projects," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    10. Gumber, Anurag & Zana, Riccardo & Steffen, Bjarne, 2024. "A global analysis of renewable energy project commissioning timelines," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 358(C).
    11. Christoph March & Ina Schieferdecker, 2021. "Technological Sovereignty as Ability, Not Autarky," CESifo Working Paper Series 9139, CESifo.
    12. Waidelich, Paul & Steffen, Bjarne, 2024. "Renewable energy financing by state investment banks: Evidence from OECD countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    13. Fagerberg, Jan, 2018. "Mobilizing innovation for sustainability transitions: A comment on transformative innovation policy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(9), pages 1568-1576.
    14. Karo , Erkki & Kattel , Rainer, 2015. "Innovation Bureaucracy: Does the organization of government matter when promoting innovation?," Papers in Innovation Studies 2015/38, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    15. Joanna Stryjek, 2021. "Counteracting the COVID-19 Crisis with Innovation Policy Tools: A Case Study of the EU’s Supranational Innovation Policy," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(3), pages 450-468.
    16. Serenella Caravella & Valeria Costantini & Francesco Crespi, 2021. "Mission-Oriented Policies and Technological Sovereignty: The Case of Climate Mitigation Technologies," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-16, October.
    17. Gergely Buda & Judit Ricz, 2023. "Industrial symbiosis and industrial policy for sustainable development in Uganda," Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 165-189, April.
    18. Brookes, Naomi J. & Locatelli, Giorgio, 2015. "Power plants as megaprojects: Using empirics to shape policy, planning, and construction management," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 57-66.
    19. Leonard Prochaska & Daniel Schiller, 2021. "An evolutionary perspective on the emergence and implementation of mission-oriented innovation policy: the example of the change of the leitmotif from biotechnology to bioeconomy," Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 141-249, April.
    20. Dmitry O. Skobelev, 2020. "Industrial policy of increasing resource efficiency and the achievement of the sustainable development goals," Journal of New Economy, Ural State University of Economics, vol. 21(4), pages 153-173, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:oxford:v:38:y:2022:i:2:p:237-259.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/oxrep .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.