Who pro!ts from the green energy rush? - Derisking and power relations in Africa’s

Global financial markets and structural power in renewable energy in the African continent The volume of capital seeking profitable investments in financial markets has increased enormously since the 1980s.4 The pressure on profitability in the productive sector in the industrialised countries, redistribution in favour of wealth-owning social groups and the turn to pension systems based on capital. [...] The core of the reform is the unbundling of Senelec, the national electricity company and off-taker – the purchaser of electricity in renewable energy projects, and the strengthening of private actors in energy production.14 IPPs tender for production rights, while the regulator’s long-term energy planning offers investors a stable basis for long-term investment decisions. [...] The profit-driven logic behind the project financing and the need for constant revenues to serve the creditors shapes inequities at the lower end of the windfarm, namely in how it affects local communities. [...] These include the spill of brine from desalination plants into the sea or groundwater, the use of rare freshwater reserves as planned by the German government-funded Daures project, the use of national park sites for the Hyphen project, and the huge impact of the planned infrastructure, such as ports and plants on terrestrial and marine ecosystems. [...] The result is the socialisation of risks and the privatisation of profits especially for elites and international investors – which perpetuate the state’s indebtedness to international banks and constrain the space for intervention by civil society.