A new publication by Mélanie Rateau and Sylvy Jaglin is out as a result of the research funded by Hybridelec.
Reference: Rateau Mélanie et Jaglin Sylvy, « Co-production of access and hybridisation of configurations: a socio-technical approach to urban electricity in Cotonou and Ibadan », International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, 2020, p. 1–16. Online (available upon request)
ABSTRACT
The article examines the dynamics of access to electricity in two West African cities: Cotonou (Benin) and Ibadan (Nigeria). Due to poor supply from the grid, households are developing varied ways of accessing electricity, based on different socio-technical dispositifs. In this paper we first demonstrate that access to electricity is based on coproduction processes that must be approached from a multi-scale perspective (from the household to the urban scale). We then argue that particular attention to the socio-technical and spatial dimension of co-production arrangements makes it possible to interpret urban electrical configurations and their evolution. We thus show that co-production processes, relying on many actors and technologies to meet a growing and diversified demand for electricity in cities, support an ongoing movement of extension-hybridisation of electricity configurations on an urban scale, thus offering an interesting perspective on power changes in sub-Saharan Africa.