ABSTRACT
Renewables represent an environmentally friendly and socially valuable solution for decentralized energy production. A large number of pilot projects in offgrid areas all over the world have demonstrated their technological feasibility. Critical factors for transferring these experiences to the national level have been identified (Wilkins 2002), but a clear research gap exists with regard to the impact of local projects on national policies and their potential to be replicated or transferred to other project sites. Comprehensive impact evaluations that monitor the projects’ sustainability far beyond their official termination by the donor are rare, so it remains unclear what actually works under which conditions (Caspari and Barbu 2008). By taking a multi-level governance perspective, this book contributes to that debate. Intergovernmental relations are crucial for development cooperation, because donor-driven projects ideally aim to scale up or diffuse results beyond their direct project level of intervention. Institutionalizing long-term structural change, including in relation to renewable energy development, depends on decisions not only at the national level, but also at subnational jurisdictions.
