Just sustainabilities: lessons from the Lake Turkana Wind Power project in Kenya

ABSTRACT

In the light of increasing socio-ecological crises, there has been a surge in the promotion of renewable energy in the Global South. Previous theories and research often hail these developments as a breakthrough. Yet, just sustainability theorists have pointed to logically plausible problems in these alternatives, suggesting that they do not go far enough and could, indeed, worsen the present crises. Africa’s largest wind power plant, the Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) project in Kenya, provides a useful case study for this purpose. This article focuses on two questions: which are the dominant discourses on the LTWP project and what are the prospects of these discourses to drive just sustainability in Kenya? Drawing on interview data and using critical discourse analysis (CDA) set within a political-economic framework on just sustainabilities this article argues that the project is realised within the dominant capitalist frame, guided by a reliance on market forces, new technologies and a search for new frontiers of capital accumulation, processes that are erected on, and typically drive, local and global inequalities. Thus, the project has not been able to address wider concerns of inclusion in Northern Kenya. Analytically, this evidence shows that mainstream conservative and liberal theories of development and energy are insufficient for analysing the transition from fossil to alternative fuels. This evidence provides further basis to put the case for understanding alternative energy projects, and particularly the LTWP, within a broader framework of alternative, radical theories of just sustainabilities centred on concepts such as just land.

KEYWORDS:

• Wind power
• renewable energy
• Lake Turkana Wind Power
• Northern Kenya
• just sustainabilities

1. Introduction

The fossil fuel era is in crisis. For the past hundred years, fossil fuels have provided us with “easy-to-get, cheap, high density energy” that has been available in ever increasing amounts (Manno, Prince, and Martin 2015, 4). Fossil extractivism, among other human actions, has, however, led to the warming of the climate at an unprecedented rate, resulting in widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere (IPCC 2021). For leading African economies, the centrality of the extraction and sale of fossil fuels has been reinforced, not only by new oil discoveries and the growth of so called “oil cities”, but also by the rise of the middle-class, and the “Africa on the rise” processes and emphases that, until recently, have seen the re-emergence of strong economic growth (for critical comments, see Blimpo and Cosgrove-Davies 2019, 33, 72; Melber 2013; Obeng-Odoom 2014). Simultaneously, however, Africa is experiencing a surge in renewable energy solutions. Wind energy capacity, for example, increased twelve-fold in Africa between 1980 and 2010 (African Development Bank 2017) and by 2020 stood at 6.5 GW (GWEC 2021). This, however, still only represents a fraction of the continent’s technical wind potential and constitutes a small part of the total 58 GW of installed renewable energy across the continent (Africa–EU Energy Partnership 2022; PWC 2021). Liberal promoters of wind power often argue that wind is a step towards green growth and increased electricity access in Africa, and a way to limit the national and global carbon footprint. Africa is argued to have a unique and inherent advantage to leap-frog and use renewable energy in order to combat climate change due to abundant available resources (for a discussion, see for example Ddamulira 2016; Halsnæs, Markandya, and Shukla 2011, 983; Jacobs 2012; Kazimierczuk 2019; Mukasa 2013).

With the growth of the renewable energy business in the Global South has also come a range of criticisms. More radical research shows that even low-carbon technologies, innovations, and the search for new sites of capital accumulation tend to produce injustice in unpredictable and surprising ways (Newell and Mulvaney 2013; Healy and Barry 2017, 455). Similar types of contradictions characterise the renewable energy industry as the fossil fuel industry. The exploitation concerns everything from property rights to labour, which is being excluded, exploited and undervalued, as well as communities that are being evicted (Obeng-Odoom 2016; Obeng-Odoom 2017, 116). Although the growth of renewable energy capacity has been strongest in non-OECD-countries there is still limited research on energy system transformations in the Global South (Marquardt, Steinbacher, and Schreurs 2016, 22).

It is in this context that Kenya and the Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) project deserve serious and sustained attention. Kenya is making huge investments in its energy production, and especially renewable energy generation. In 2020 the share of renewable energy in the national grid stood at around 93 per cent, more than three times the global average (Africa Energy Series 2020; Mwago 2019; Wood 2018). Kenya has made substantial progress towards developing wind energy projects. To date, the biggest project in Kenya, and the whole of Africa, is the LTWP, in Loiyangalani in Marsabit West County (Gargule 2019, 2; Ministry of Devolution and Planning 2017, 33; Mukasa 2013). LTWP is the biggest private investment in Kenyan history (Cookson, Kuna, and Golla 2017) and its aim is to provide 310 MW of low-cost electrical power to the national grid (Ministry of Devolution and Planning 2017, 33). The project has, however, also been the target of scrutiny. Research conducted in the Turkana area in Northern Kenya has raised critical questions about the social and economic impacts for local communities in the vicinity of the wind power project (see for example Cormack 2018; Gargule 2019; Renkens 2019; Schilling 2018; Voller 2016). The development of the wind power park in Marsabit has radically transformed the value and significance of land in the area (Cormack 2018), and issues with how the rights of the local communities, for example, in cases of relocation, have been interpreted and safeguarded by the consortium and Kenyan government, have been questioned (Renkens 2019; Voller 2016). The dominant development discourse that has been used to legitimise the grabbing of common land for the development of the wind farm is argued to depoliticise the development by presenting the dominant pastoralist lifestyle in the area as unviable (Gargule 2019, 2, 22–23). Finally, Schilling (2018) has demonstrated that there are similarities between the oil and wind exploitations on both sides of the Turkana Lake in terms of unmet promises of compensation for land and community expectations for employment that cause tensions and conflicts between the operating companies and the local communities.

Investment in renewable energy, such as LTWP, in the Global South (see, for example, Kazimierczuk 2019; Kruckenberg 2015) is increasingly done in the name of sustainability. Agyeman (2008, 752), however, argues that the current focus on sustainability as “green” or “environmental” is an insufficient approach where the existing policies are merely tweaked. Instead, if sustainability is to become a process that truly transforms our societies it needs to incorporate issues of justice and equity at its core. In addition, the capitalist policy framework within which wind energy projects are carried out is seldom questioned. These political-economic questions about what is happening, who gets what, who gains and loses, how it matters and why (Stilwell 2012, 3), or more specifically, the motivations, interests, and distribution between different groups in wind power projects, and how these intersect with so-called green growth have not been well researched and yet are central to the global struggle against green grabbing, or the privatisation or appropriation of land for purposes of advancing a “green” economy while excluding local, Indigenous people from natural resources (Siamanta 2019; Weeber 2016, 116–117, 118).

The present article addresses this research gap by focusing on two questions: what are the dominant discourses connected to the LTWP project, and what are the prospects of these discourses to drive just sustainability in Kenya? The article is based on qualitative research carried out in Kenya and Finland at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020, detailed in the fourth section, where the method, critical discourse analysis, is also presented. The next, second section, provides an overview of previous research focused on energy and development, followed by the third section including a brief description of the study site. In the fifth section results are presented and discussed, along concrete alternative suggestions for how large wind power projects such as LTWP can account for equity and sustainability in a just way that does not continue to recreate the historically marginalised position of the Turkana area in Northern Kenya. The sixth and final section concludes the article. By utilising a political economy approach, interviewing representatives for the LTWP consortium and investors, and investigating the dominant discourses on issues of sustainability and equity this article adds to existing literature on LTWP (Cormack 2018; Gargule 2019; Renkens 2019; Schilling 2018; Voller 2016) and aims to broaden the discussion on wind energy and just sustainabilities in the Global South.

2 Literature review

Previous research on energy and its prospects to drive socio-economic development, sustainability and equity can be organised along three paradigms of conservative, liberal and radical, as outlined by Stilwell (2019, 93), to help examine the dominant, mainstream theories as well as their criticisms and alternatives. From a conservative standpoint, resource economists and environmental economists have developed models that incorporate energy in the economic growth process (Alabi 2017; Eggoh 2011; Motengwe and Alagidede 2017; Omri 2014; Stern 2011) and research has shown that increased energy production and consumption, regardless of the source, can develop prosperous societies. The damaging environmental effects arising from the use of fossil fuels is argued to pass over time as societies become more sophisticated and technologically advanced (for a more detailed discussion see Alabi 2017, 389–390; Motengwe and Alagidede 2017, 86–87). Conservative studies on the role of energy in African countries highlight the importance of continued increased energy production and consumption for the benefit of the national economies (see for example Alabi 2017, 399; Eggoh 2011, 7419; KIPPRA 2018, 1, 39). Eggoh (2011, 7419) concludes that energy reducing policies will have a negative impact on development in Africa. Growth is thus seen as the enabler of more environmentally friendly, clean and sustainable energy forms in line with international agreements and goals, such as the 2015 Paris Agreement (Motengwe and Alagidede 2017). Several studies have, nevertheless, rejected this assumption and show that environmental impacts continue increasing as economic growth persist (for a discussion see Alabi 2017). Although global energy related CO2 emissions flattened in 2019 to around 33 gigatonnes, after two years of increase, the decline is mainly visible in countries of the Global North (IEA 2020).

A second, liberal approach, acknowledges there are problems with using fossil fuels and, therefore, focuses on increased use of renewable energy for a green and clean future. Supported and promoted by many of the world’s leading development and economic institutions, this approach underlines the use of market forces and new technologies for so-called green growth and sustainable development. Central to the argument is the decoupling of the discussion on resource use and economic growth from issues and solutions to environmental degradation (for a discussion see Brand 2012; Zervas 2012). The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly, have upheld energy as a central pillar and SDG7 calls for access to affordable, reliable sustainable and modern energy for all (Hickel 2019, 1; Thomas 2020). Political leaders have recognised that failing in either overcoming poverty or abating the dangers of climate change ultimately means a systemic failure, and that, instead, transforming and leapfrogging energy systems can open up a number of economic, health and social co-benefits (Sokona 2012, 5).

Both the conservative and the liberal approaches have been widely questioned. Perhaps, the most full-throated critiques have been provided by scholars and activists for years. Indeed, The Limits to Growth (Meadows 1972) provided one of such major early critiques and concludes that: “If the present growth trends in world population, industrialisation, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years (Meadows 1972, 23–24). Hickel (2019) points out that with the targeted global economic growth of three per cent per year it is impossible to reduce global resource use, especially energy consumption, to an extent where carbon emissions are kept low enough to keep the planet from warming more than two degrees Celsius, a conflict rarely recognised by promoters of the liberal approach (Burton 2015; The Global Commission on Economy and Climate 2019). Social movements of late, calling for a “steady state economy” or “degrowth” make attempts to offer alternatives to the dominant ideology of growth (Demaria et al. 2013; Stilwell 2019, 234–235). Brand (2012, 31–32) concludes that the most important question is under what conditions a greening of the economy takes place, whose interest are served and who controls renewable energy production? He suggests a “comprehensive and democratic understanding of wealth, well-being and social quality” and most importantly, more democratic control over society-nature relations (Brand 2012, 31–32).

A third and final approach attempts to offer such an alternative by suggesting only to use renewable energy to ensure social and economic well-being for all and simultaneously tackle issues of environmental degradation and climate change. Those who lobby for a radical shift to renewables also often argue for fossil fuels to be left in the ground or at least that their use be limited and reduced extensively (Manno, Prince, and Martin 2015, viii – xi). Even this approach has its opponents, who argue, that the transition needs to also happen in a “just” way that considers environmental, economic and social aspects of switching from one energy source to another (Abdallah 2016, 157). As Obeng-Odoom (2021, 18) argues, a crucial aspect of the radical approach is that is it centred on inequality and social stratification. The binary approach of using either fossils or renewables in Africa is also contested. Social costs arising from the privatisation of nature, in the name of green growth, are not fully accounted for by mainstream economics. Considering history, how slaves were used as sustainable energy during slavery, but also considering that African countries are not historically the biggest polluters (Obeng-Odoom 2017, 2021, 147), it can be questioned whether a complete shift to renewables can be required of African countries at any cost.

Julian Agyeman (2008, 752) suggests a Just Sustainabilities Paradigm, which can account for sustainability in a transformative way, if it incorporates issues of equity and justice, race and class, and takes on a redistributive function, acknowledging that environmental problems are disproportionately suffered by the poor, while the poor are not the main polluters (Agyeman and Evans 2004). Building upon the concept of “just sustainabilities”, a growing number of academic scholars have in recent years engaged in a debate focused on bringing together climate, energy and environmental justice scholarship under the framework “just transition” (McCauley and Heffron 2018, 1–6). Three dominant frames for analysis have been identified. Firstly, distributional justice, namely questions concerning land use and access to the rents extracted from the resource exploitation, secondly, procedural justice, or the right to participate in deliberations (Newell 2016 as cited in Newell and Mulvaney 2013, 7), and thirdly, restorative justice, which also includes the recognition of gender, income, and ethnicity in both developed and developing contexts (McCauley and Heffron 2018, 3). A broad understanding of a just transition includes measurable outcomes from actions, meaning direct changes in laws or policies, and most importantly, public acceptance and understanding for these changes (McCauley and Heffron 2018; Newell and Mulvaney 2013). In practice, it is suggested that policy makers tailor their decisions to local contexts by including communities and citizens in all phases of policymaking (Newell and Mulvaney 2013).

Yet, when energy projects are carried out as regional or bilateral trade or investment agreements, they tend to hold a limited space for claim-making around issues of justice (McCauley and Heffron 2018, 1–6). Modern economics also seems to have become less space bound and perhaps therefore mostly disregard the centrality of land in economic analysis, although the question of land is pivotal from a justice and sustainability perspective (Stilwell 2012, 88–89). Various injustices associated with large-scale wind or solar extraction cannot, however, be seen as an inherent part of the technology, they are rather a reflection of the social, political, and economic design of society. The privatisation or appropriation of land for purposes of a so-called green economy and green energy is increasing, and the “thirst for steady, affordable and reliable energy resources” drives up land grabs by multinational companies and wealthy nations (Newell and Mulvaney 2013, 5). The land where projects are carried out is often presumed as empty, unused or free, in practice leading to the parcelling out common land for corporations and transferring common wealth to private hands. As the key inputs, sun and wind, are also regarded as free, the corporations extract rent from privatised land, often serving the interests of foreign investors, usually “absentee owners” (for a discussion, see Obeng-Odoom 2021, 148).

Finally, a just transition, aiming at reducing inequalities and social stratification, accounts for the question of energy democracy; essentially a more democratic and equal ownership and control over energy (Newell and Mulvaney 2013). Alternative ownership structures, or community ownership of renewable energy, has so far been well researched in the context of the Global North and results show that community energy projects can have positive impacts in the communities where they are situated in terms of job creation, local capacity building and the financing of local community projects through community benefit funds. Results indicate that government support for community owned renewable energy projects in low-income or disadvantage areas can help facilitate a more equitable distribution of low-carbon technologies and their benefits (for a discussion see Stewart 2021). Furthermore, Creamer et al. (2019), notes that in addition to outcomes of empowerment, capacity building, energy democracy and justice, an equally important aspect of community renewable energy projects is the inclusive and collaborative, and at its core, a more democratic process of development compared to non-community renewable energy projects.

In the context of the Global South, and drawing on experiences from Mexico, Avila-Calero (2017) notes that if wind power projects are planned with an increased reliance on market forces and a growing appeal for private property in land, it simultaneously means that several social, cultural and political dimensions are disregarded and left unaddressed. In the Isthmus of Tehuantepec regions in Mexico, land, inhabited by Indigenous communities, and treated as a public and common good, was in the early 2000s, appropriated by the government for foreign companies interested in developing large-scale wind projects in the area. This was done without consulting or gaining permission from local communities thus ignoring the rights of the Indigenous people. After years of articulating claims, resisting the projects, and finally mobilising residents to engage in dialogue with the companies, the communities were able to bring forth a proposal to promote community wind-farms as a concrete alternative to private, foreign-owned wind farms, bringing forth a more equal form of ownership, democratic decision-making and revenue distribution. Avila-Calero (2017), therefore, suggests that to break the neoliberal processes in large scale wind projects, this middle ground pathway, inspired by ideas of commons, can assist in reaching energy sovereignty (Avila-Calero 2017). Similarly, in the case of large-scale solar projects in India, Yenneti, Day, and Golubchikov (2016, 98) argue that considering issues of justice in connection to land acquisitions through just compensation mechanisms is key to achieving energy justice as development of renewables ramps up.

Theorising the question of land and rent in connection to energy even further, Obeng-Odoom (2021, 23–24) argues that rather than focusing on the dichotomy of fossil fuels and renewable alternatives, “commoning” resource through a strategy of energy sovereignty might offer a much more transformative strategy for the future, while simultaneously addressing issues of inequality that arise with the uneven private property relations in energy extraction. Considering how central land is for every aspect of African life, and building on the ideas of Henry George, Obeng-Odoom (2021, 160, 204–205) argues that “commoning”, not the nationalisation of land, but rather the socialisation of privately appropriated rent, can offer an alternative, radical pathway. As an addition to the concepts of just sustainabilities and just transitions, the concept of “just land” can serve in animating the problems with rent theft, or “the private extraction and appropriation of rent created by society at large”, which, as noted earlier, becomes a problem in large-scale wind development when they are run by big, often foreign owned and financed, enterprises. The concept of just land requires redefining the “return of land to the commons, the non-commodification of land in the commons, and the active nourishing of such land” (Obeng-Odoom 2021, 204–205).

The foregoing analysis raises two questions. First, which are the dominant discourses on the LTWP project and, second, what are the prospects of these discourses to drive just sustainability in Kenya? Existing works do not address these questions. Indeed, the three most widely used approaches tend to be capital centred, concerned with accumulation or redistribution, but insufficient in theorising the question of land. Nevertheless, if we are interested in issues concerning ecology, sustainability and equity, the use of land, in connection to the primary resource wind, is especially important (Stilwell 2012, 88–89). Considering the location of the case study, Kenya, and the centrality of land for every aspect of African life (Obeng-Odoom 2021, 204–205), recognising that land has different meaning in different contexts and addressing the array of risks and uncertainties that modern development practices of marketisation of land carries with it (Elahi and Stilwell 2013, 35) is imperative.

3 Study site

The Lake Turkana Wind Power Project is situated in Loiyangalani in Marsabit County, Kenya. The project covers an area of 162 km² or 40 000 acres, with related infrastructure on altogether 150 000 acres of land (Gargule 2019, 2; Mukasa 2013; Ministry of Devolution and Planning 2017, 33). The project is run by a consortium, comprising of the developers KP&P Africa B.V and Aldwych International, in cooperation with investors, including the Danish Investment Fund for Developing Countries, Vestas Eastern Africa Limited, KLP Norfund Investments AS, Sandpiper and Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation Ltd (Finnfund) (LTWP 2018a). Marsabit County is the largest county in Kenya, covering a land mass of 70,961.2 km², comprising plains, dwarf-shrub grassland, and a dry bushed grassland. The area has a population of approximately 291,000, including three major migrant pastoralist groups, the Boran, Gabra and Rendille (Gargule 2019, 8–9).

The Turkana corridor, where the wind park is located, has suffered neglect dating back to British colonial rule. It was later continued by the Kenyan national governments (Cormack 2018; Renkens 2019). In line with the national development policy of Kenya, drawn up shortly after independence in 1963, development money has been invested where it will yield the largest increase in net output. In practice, this pattern of developing the capital and other cities benefits the already rich. The policies have been insufficient in tackling issues of inequality that stem from lack of access to fuel, water, and education (Kabubo-Mariara 2013; Republic of Kenya 1965).

For the development of the wind power park in the Marsabit community, land has been leased to the consortium, including the transfer of rights to the trust land. This has led to increased tensions in the area, most notably because of competing claims to the rangeland in Sarima, based on ancestral presence, grazing patterns and seniority (Republic of Kenya 2018; Seeing Conflict at the Margins 2019). In 2015 a court case was brought to the High Court in Meru against the consortium by members of the Marsabit County Government (Cormack 2018; Gargule 2019; Schilling 2018) arguing that the land acquisition was not done according to the law at the time, the Trust Land Act. The County Government members demanded the acquisition to be nullified and the land returned to the communities (Renkens 2019; Wanyoro 2020). In October 2021, the High Court in Meru nullified title deeds for the land, saying the land was acquired irregularly. The judges did, however, decline to cancel the title deeds. Instead, they instructed the Marsabit County government, the Attorney-General, the Chief Land Registrar and the National Land Commission to regularise the process within one year. Described as a landmark ruling, the court’s decision is seen as an opportunity for the community to seek compensation. Government agencies will also be required to hold public participation forums in the future (Wanyoro 2021).

4 Materials and methods

4.1 Data collection

This case study area is clearly a complex site. Collecting relevant data in that context must, accordingly, be systematic. Guided by, the special characteristics of the project, and accessibility to critical sources (Jørgensen and Phillips 2002, 75–76), we collected a mixture of oral and written material, representing several different positions about the project. The data includes eight semi-structured interviews, 12 news and feature articles, two policy documents, one company impact assessment, and data from a range of secondary sources from existing literature. The semi-structured interviews (in the results referred to as R1, R2, R3 … R8) were conducted face-to-face in Kenya and Finland between November 2019 and January 2020 before the outbreak of COVID-19. The selection of interviewees was guided by the principle of triangulation in data collection, analysis and discussion, grounded in strong theoretic foundations. Recent research on Africa (Obeng-Odoom 2022, 2023) shows that when such conditions are met even a small pool of interviewees could illustrate broader patterns, especially when the process of selecting the interviewees is systematic. In this study, the interviewees were asked to recommend other respondents, and if several referred to the same key persons she or he was contacted. As the aim of the research is to understand different standpoints towards the project, the respondents were chosen in a way that represents a variety of positions connected to the LTWP project, and for their expertise or experience connected to the project or project area. Out of the eight respondents, two were senior representatives for the LTWP consortium, one from Marsabit county government, and has been involved in the process for several years, two interviewees contributed from the viewpoint of one of the investors, Finnfund, and the Finnish Foreign Ministry in charge of steering Finnfund, and three respondents were residents or representatives of the communities in the project area. The semi-structured interviews followed a set of 16 questions grouped along four themes: (1) background and planning of LTWP (2) wind power, economic growth, and sustainability (3) energy transition (4) closing questions including lessons learnt. The interviews were recorded with the respondents’ permission and transcribed keeping the respondents’ identities confidential. To avoid “fuzzy concepts” (Markusen 1999) that can be misunderstood or interpreted differently by researcher, interviewees or the reader, the semi-structured interview questions were left open for respondents themselves to define concepts such as “development”, “sustainability” and “equity”. This allowed for a more nuanced analysis or the concepts, bringing forth different views without pre-defined conceptual frames and allows for clear results with policy recommendations.

The news and feature articles have, due to the project’s long duration, been randomly chosen from a broad period, 2016 to 2020, and were collected from a variety of Finnish, Kenyan and international established, as well as independent, media outlets to give a variety of perspectives and accounts for the heterogeneity of beliefs and channels that reflect the digital media age (Barkho 2013, 14–16). Finally, the policy documents have been collected for their direct relevance to the case or the interviews. The variety of written and oral data allows for triangulation and strengthens the validity of this research. Complementing the semi-structured interviews with news articles, official government documents, regulations and impact assessments allows for validating statements. Research results from previous studies in the area are additionally used to triangulate the data and to reach a point of saturation.

4.2 Critical discourse analysis as method within the political-economic approach

To sift through these data, we used a political economy approach and framework (Stilwell 2019) that offers an alternative to mainstream economic orthodoxy. Within this framework, critical discourse analysis (CDA) (Jørgensen and Phillips 2002, 60–95), has been used to allow us to study how knowledge is formed and validated by society as truth (Dittmer et al. 2010, 275). CDA does not see discourses merely as reflections of existing structures in society, but also as shaping and reshaping them (Jørgensen and Phillips 2002, 60). Fairclough’s three-dimensional model for CDA, including text, discursive practice, and social practice (Fairclough 1995; Jørgensen and Phillips 2002, 8) helps to systematise the data. The first layer, text, refers to the linguistic features of a text. Discursive practices refer to the ways in which texts are produced and consumed, and this is an important part of the third level, the social practice, which analyses the relation of the communicative event to wider social practices, including social identities and relations. By binding together the individual layers, the analysis leads to a coherent understanding of the relationship between discourses and the wider social context (Fairclough 1995, 185–186; Jørgensen and Phillips 2002, 8–10).

The shift away from fossil fuel and increased investments in and promotion of alternative energy sources are in this case the social practice that provides the frame for the textual and discursive analysis. Using Microsoft Excel Office 365, the transcribed interviews, newspaper articles, policy documents, and the impact assessment were all individually analysed within the three-dimensional frame, beginning with analysis of the discursive practices, including the most prominent discourses, interdiscursivity, or mixing of diverse genres and styles, and genres. Thereafter a narrower analysis, focusing on the text, paying attention to text structure, wording, and metaphors used to describe LTWP, was carried out on each item. The individual results were thereafter compiled to compare the dominance and alternativity of the discourses, and these results were finally analysed against the backdrop of previous literature and within Stilwell’s (2019) taxonomy, of conservative, liberal and radical. During the analysis, patterns emerged quite quickly, indicating that the dominant discourses, most often uttered by representatives of the consortium or investors, or found in the media material, followed the logic of the conservative and liberal paradigms. Alternatives to these dominant discourses echoed the radical approach and could most often be found among those representing local communities in the project area.

CDA puts political concerns for how power works in society and how language contributes to or reveals these workings (Breeze 2011, 495) centre stage, and aims to “contribute to social change along the lines of more equal power relations in communication processes and society in general” (Jørgensen and Phillips 2002, 61–75). The method is, therefore, suitable for analysing a large wind power plant in a developing country context, where the outspoken goal of the project is to develop Kenya for the benefit of all Kenyans. As we are interested in issues of equity in relation to wind power, critically examining how the dominant discourses account for this can uncover whether even the most marginalised in society can be expected to benefit from development. In addition, analysing the power relationships between different actors involved in the project is of great interest for uncovering the possibilities and limitations of the project and CDA also makes that possible within our political-economic approach.

5 Results

5.1 LTWP as a global showcase with national and local economic benefits

The results of the critical discourse analysis show that, globally, LTWP is framed as a showcase, and demonstration of capability for Kenya and the whole of Africa. It is considered a step towards making Africa the world leader in renewables. A marketisation discourse emphasises that LTWP has enhanced the competitiveness of Kenya on the global investment market. The project is framed as a success story where the impossible has been made possible. Words used by company representatives, investors, and in most of the media articles, including “pioneer”, “innovative”, “massive”, “huge”, “significant” and “flagship”, paint a picture of a spectacular accomplishment. The same interviewees, echoing a conservative or liberal approach to the project land as unused or free (for a discussion, see Obeng-Odoom 2021, 148), use words such as “remote”, “poor”, “marginalised”, “middle of nowhere”, “uninhabited” or “wild North” to describe the geography of the land where the project is situated, often in comparison to Nairobi, the rest of Kenya or the rest of the world. People or groups who have resisted the project during the construction are described as “hostile pastoralist communities”, “trigger happy bandits” and “local tribes”. The discourse implies that the operations in Loiyangalani and Marsabit county have been difficult both mentally and physically for the developers. Everything from attracting finance, persuading politicians and locals, to the weather and logistics, transportation of material and construction of the wind park, is described as a journey of working against the odds and finally, all parties succeeded with something unprecedented. One company representative notes:

It's a miracle that the project got to financial close. It's a miracle that it got constructed. It's a miracle that the transmission line came on whenever it did and it's a miracle that we were actually able to generate and operate and be such a large contributor of green clean cheap form of energy. (R1, LTWP representative)

The perception of the project as a success also dominates the media narrative, highlighting the power the consortium, investors and the government have had in driving the image of the project. The consortium is described as catalysing or accelerating development in the area, while making a profitable investment.

Nationally, the dominant economic discourse underlines the centrality or necessity of increased energy in Kenya for the benefit of national economic growth and development, in line with conservative studies on the role of energy in Africa (see for example Alabi 2017, 399; Eggoh 2011, 7419; KIPPRA 2018, 1, 39). The importance of choosing “cheap” electricity sources, as opposed to the alternative, expensive fossil fuel is, however, also underlined. In line with the liberal approach, LTWP is expected to save government money, increase energy production, enable economic growth, and shift Kenya to becoming a manufacturing economy. A comparative discourse also emphasises the different incentives for African and European countries to invest in wind power. One Lake Turkana community representative summarises: “In the West clean energy production is probably with the mind to exit fossil fuels and become clean energy dependent. In Africa it’s just revenue generation to get out of poverty and, you know, underdevelopment” (R2, Lake Turkana community representative).

The dominant political and legal discourses also highlight the central role of the national government in guiding the LTWP project and the energy transition more broadly. The government is seen as the most active agent and expected to, locally and internationally, set an agenda and create policy mechanisms that incentivise increased use of renewables, as one respondent representing LTWP concludes: “ … it starts with the government, always, because policy is what dictates what kind of opportunity exists” (R1, LTWP representative). Interestingly, there is a surprisingly low level of support for a complete shift to renewable energy in the Kenyan context. In contrast to liberal research on the energy transition in Kenya, which highlight the necessity of the ongoing, rapid shift towards renewables for socio-economic economic development and considering climate change (Ddamulira 2016, 261; Kazimierczuk 2019, 434), the dominant discourses pay little attention to environmental sustainability and rather conclude that for Kenya to achieve national economic growth, a complete shift away from fossil fuels is not possible nor even desirable. In contrast, the alternative discourse, as expressed by local communities, does not question the need for more energy. One local community representative questions the narrow and dominant focus on the need for national economic growth and, in line with critique of the liberal and promoters of the radical approach, questions whether continuously growing the Kenyan economy is compatible with efforts to protect the environment and mitigate climate change (R2, Lake Turkana community representative).

The local level economic discourse has a much higher level of interdiscursivity. It draws on many different discourses and creates a more complex picture of the benefits and disadvantages of the project. This can be interpreted as a higher degree of change or conflict in attitudes towards the project. The most prominent sub-discourse focuses on local communities as economic winners or losers in connection to the project and is tightly coupled with a socio-economic development discourse focusing on the ripple effects of employment and income generation. Historical marginalisation of the region (Cormack 2018; Renkens 2019), the lack of education and little contact with the national government makes expectations on development multiple compared to if the project was done in an urban setting. As an example, LTWP’s corporate social responsibility programme (CSR) Winds of Change (WoC) (LTWP 2017, 2018a), which according to consortium representatives has promised to allocate and use around 10 million euros over a 20-year period (R1, LTWP representative; R4 LTWP representative; R8, investor representative), is in the dominant discourse described as impressive and as having an impact on peoples’ lives. The alternative development and expectations discourses, expressed by local representatives, nevertheless, stress that LTWP should have “done more” and that the company was not “informed by the realities and the needs of the communities”, leading to “minimal” impact (R6 Lake Turkana community representative).

The most striking difference in the economic discourse at the local level is connected to the compensation structure of 150 000 acres of land leased by the county government in trust for the communities to the consortium. Although Kenyan energy policy documents (Ministry of Energy 2018, 69; Ministry of State for Planning 2012, iv) recognise land as a “critical resource for the socio-economic and political development” and a “vital factor of production in the economy”, investors and consortium representatives, as well as the analysed media material, show a low level of interdiscursivity and fail to mention land, reflecting conservative and liberal stances towards development and a lack of consideration towards the use of land in the economic analysis (Stilwell 2012, 88–89) leading to a situation where the stakeholders of the project have very different views on how to estimate and negotiate the value of the land where the wind turbines stand.

The court case between Marsabit county residents and LTWP was pending when the interviews were conducted, which might be a reason for why respondents representing the company and the investors did not want to comment on the issue. Contrastingly, among respondents representing the county government and local communities, land was the most prominent theme, emphasising long occupation and the value of land in non-economic terms, highlighting how tightly tied the extraction of the wind resource is to the use of the land where the turbines stand. Furthermore, a county government representative notes that Marsabit has made substantial losses, being paid only around two Kenyan shillings per acre or 300 000 shillings per year (R5 Marsabit county representative), while another local community representative questions whose knowledge the compensation of the land is based on: “What they are paying is not based on any market valuation of that land … So, in that sense, then where is equity?” (R2, Lake Turkana community representative).

5.2 Prospects of LTWP for sustainability and equity

The high level of interdiscursivity in the local discourses indicate there are contesting views on how issues of sustainability and equity in connection to wind power should be solved. One local community representative summarises that for the project to be perceived as sustainable: “They [LTWP] should have allocated more resources to local development, and in more resources, I mean either part of the revenue or just provision of electricity” (R2, Lake Turkana community representative). The explicit task of LTWP, as mandated by the Kenyan state, is, however, to provide the national grid with additional, low-cost power. Although off-grid projects and a large expansion of the electricity grid is in the works to link rural Kenya to the national grid, the monopoly of the Kenya Power and Lighting Company to operate most of the electricity transmission and distribution makes it difficult for LTWP to supply electricity locally, even if they produce excess energy. Instead LTWP has, in cooperation with the Rural Electrification Authority, developed and designed a substation that could provide power from the wind farm to communities in vicinity of the wind power plant. The substation could serve around 20 000 people and would cost LTWP 15 to 20 million dollars. Interviewees representing LTWP, however, conclude that financially this would be unprofitable for the company. Therefore, the consortium has so-far provided or assisted communities with off-grid solar solutions through the CSR projects (R1, LTWP representative; LTWP 2017, 2018b).

In terms of revenue sharing, the dominant legal discourse supports binding revenue sharing requirements for fossil fuel extraction but not for the renewables industry. Representatives for LTWP and the investors underline that there is no need for legally binding revenue sharing schemes for the renewable energy sector since the resource at hand is not depleted and the extraction of the resource does not harm the environment. Additionally, one LTWP consortium representative notes that voluntary mechanisms make people more innovative and many renewable energy projects already have corporate social responsibility programmes in place (R8, investor representative). The argumentation is in line with liberal research and the current Kenyan policy. A decade ago, Tullow Oil Plc’s discovery of 750 million barrels of crude oil in the Turkana region sparked a debate and put in motion the planning of a revenue sharing scheme for oil producers. A petroleum bill approved by parliament in 2018 stipulates that income from this crude oil production is to be divided between the national government (75 per cent), the county government (20 per cent) and communities (5 per cent) (Herbling 2018; Schilling 2018, 571; Wasunna, Mavuti, and Kirwa 2018, 8). Similar schemes are not in place or planned for renewable energy.

Equity in relation to LTWP can, in line with the dominant discourses, be discerned on three levels. Globally, a comparative discourse highlights differences between the Global South and the Global North and understands equity as sharing the cost for decarbonising the world in accordance with respective emission rates. Nationally, in line with conservative and liberal approaches, the dominant discourses connect increased equality to two specific aspects of the project: firstly, cheaper energy and electricity access and ripple effects such as increased income, education, health and security. Secondly, the project is argued to increased equity because it creates direct jobs and employment opportunities in the area. Both aspects are connected to decreased poverty levels, a narrowing of the income gap and thus increased equality among Kenyans in line with the national development plan Vision 2030 (Ministry of State for Planning 2012) and the National Energy Policy (Ministry of Energy 2018). The findings clearly indicate that the conservative and liberal approaches suffer from inherent weaknesses in execution. In practice, for example, the expectations on lower energy prices arising from cheaper, greener wind in the national grid has not yet become reality. As long as Kenya is stuck with expensive thermal power purchase agreements that will only expire gradually from 2023 onwards, consumers will have to wait for the cheaper bills, and also for CO2 emissions to fall as the potential energy production mix could enable (Alushula 2019; Kazimierczuk 2019; Mwita 2019). Additionally, a slump in electricity demand during months of economic lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic led Kenya Power to rationing the amount of electricity it took from producers. This meant that LTWP was allocated a maximum production quota of 210 MW, against an installed capacity of 310 MW, and electricity consumers in Kenya are paying higher prices as the proportion of geothermal and hydro have been favoured, instead benefitting the sole producer of these energy forms, KenGen (Muchira 2020) and leading to higher than potential CO₂ emissions.

Finally, many of the interviewees at the local level express that the project “could” increase equality or has “prospects” to do so, whereas others, mainly representatives for local communities, argue with a high degree of certainty that LTWP has done the opposite, increased inequality. Firstly, the most common statement is that the project, by providing the centre, the capital, Nairobi, with more energy while leaving the periphery without, continues to uphold historical and political inequalities. Secondly, the expectations discourse includes arguments that the project has created confusion and disappointment locally, for example, since the rent paid by the consortium to Marsabit county is perceived as too low or since the availability of jobs during and after constriction, and the distribution of CSR projects has deepened existing local inequalities. In line with research on large-scale solar park development in India (Yenneti and Day 2016) many of the local grievances are ultimately connected to the fact that communal land is being used for the benefit of the capital and or entire nation while Indigenous communities living close to the wind park express a feeling of being left out from this development, or the uneven distribution of benefits that arises from the wind park development leads to local host communities bearing adverse consequences. There seems to be a lack of trust and sense of partnership between the local communities and developers, something previous research has shown (Walker, Devine-Wright, and Hunter 2010, 2662) can be pivotal for the success of developing renewable energy projects within and with communities. Additionally, as the wind resource is seen as free it leads to a situation where the company in charge is extracting rents from privatised land (Obeng-Odoom 2021, 148). When nature is commodified in this way it there is the risk that the state supports the interests of middle or upper classes and involved developers and corporations (Weeber 2016, 125), which seems to be the priority in Kenya as well. As will be discussed in the next section, the lessons from LTWP show, that to avoid this, governments have a central role in making sure that a process of accumulation by dispossession is avoided and already marginalised people do not become even more marginalised in land acquisition processes (Nygren and Wayessa 2018, 150–151).

5.3 Lessons learnt from the LTWP project

The alternative discourses and the wide variety of expectations towards the outcomes of LTWP show why the dominant understanding of wind power as inherently and homogeneously “green” and beneficial for “all” is misleading. Against the backdrop of previous literature and within Stilwell’s (2019) taxonomy, of conservative, liberal and radical, the results suggest concrete alternative ways of making wind power projects more inclusive. It shows how, by understanding the discourses, we are able to find patterns for social change that contribute to more equal power relations (Jørgensen and Phillips 2002, 61–75).

Firstly, although the dominant discourses carry a promise of increased access and availability of energy in Kenya, the monopoly of the Kenyan government in distributing the energy fundamentally weakens this claim. The Kenyan decision-makers’ push to increase the production of energy gives little or no primary attention to issues of justice and pro-poor energy access (Abdallah 2016; Cormack 2018; Gargule 2019; Myers and Medley 2019; Newell, Phillips, and Pueyo 2014). Studies on renewable energy development, especially in the Global North, shows that access to low-cost clean energy as a local community benefit is a frequently raised point (Cowell, Bristow, and Munday 2011; Munday, Bristow, and Cowell 2011; Yenneti and Day 2016). Therefore, instead of continuing to supply electricity to those who already have access to energy from large-scale technology sources, in practice higher income households in urban areas (Newell 2016, 44), the Kenyan government could direct more effort towards the electrification of rural Kenya and consider policies that enable renewable energy developers to include access and availability for local communities as a form of compensation for land use, thus framing energy access more broadly in the entire energy system and transition of the country (Sokona 2012).

Secondly, if we adopt a more radical view meaning we simultaneously want to end the fossil fuel era and do it in a “just” way that considers socio-economic and ecological factors, including democracy and transparency (Baker and Burton 2016), and if distributional, procedural and restorative justice is to be achieved (Healy and Barry 2017; McCauley and Heffron 2018), the grievances of local people need to be given more attention. Due to the size of the LTWP project and the historically neglectful treatment of the Turkana area (Cormack 2018; Renkens 2019), the project could be better designed to provide knowledge about local customs, history, livelihoods, social issues, political and land ownership dynamics in Marsabit and Loiyangalani to better account for the social costs connected to the project (for a discussion see Berger 2008, 2015, 230), which markets do not capture. In line with previous research on large-scale solar development in India (Yenneti and Day 2016, 44), the alternative discourses underline the importance of participation in decision-making progresses, the right to information and respect for local cultural, historical and social context, for the project to be sustainable and for a sense of equal distribution of benefits. This structural redesign would align with Agyeman’s (2008) concept of just sustainabilities, highlighting the necessity of recognising current inequalities, and not only aiming for future, intergenerational equality.

Thirdly, in the same way that the 2018 petroleum bill stipulates that five per cent of the income belongs to the communities (Herbling 2018; Wasunna, Mavuti, and Kirwa 2018, 8), schemes for renewable energy might need to be investigated further, as policies can be used to both encourage and ensure benefit sharing (Hicks and Lane 2019, 52).

Finally, implementing more democratic ownership strategies that protect and learn from Indigenous people could help reform land policies (Stilwell 2019, 220) and ultimately achieve energy sovereignty (Avila-Calero 2017). Research on community renewable energy development in the Global North shows that the shared social outcomes of such projects include empowerment, capacity building, energy democracy and justice (Creamer et al. 2019). Furthermore, dedicated financial support from national, and local, governments towards the development of community owned low-carbon energy projects, especially in low-income areas, could have a huge impact on a more equitable distribution of the technology and socio-economic benefits by taking advantage of for example feed-in-tariffs (Stewart 2021, 6–8). Creamer et al. (2019), conclude that greater attention on the impacts of community renewable energy is needed for achieving just energy transitions. Nevertheless, in the context of the Global South, communities where low-carbon technologies can provide not only energy access, but also other socio-economic benefits, requires specific consideration of the local realities, which are not always comparable to communities of the Global North. To account for these different realities, cooperatives and community wind farms can serve as a “third pathway inspired by the commons” and support processes of direct democracy while rejecting the binary options of the state and the market (Avila-Calero 2017, 16–17) and simultaneously account for sustainability and equality more broadly. Of course, as Obeng-Odoom (2021, 164) argues, for energy sovereignty to be achieved, African nation-states must consider redesigning key institutions to enable economic planning and development management that can achieve the socialisation of rent, making property common and including communities whose interests in the resources are non-commercial. Connecting the question of project ownership to the broader question of land ownership, the results of this research support investigating possibilities for commoning wind and land to find new paths for African countries to attain energy sovereignty (Obeng-Odoom 2021, 160–161).

6 Conclusions

This research has investigated the dominant discourses on the Lake Turkana Wind Power project and their prospects of sustainability and equity. By analysing interviews with key stakeholders, news articles and relevant policy documents with critical discourse analysis, set withing a political-economic framework on just sustainabilities, the results show the dominaint discourses portray the project, not as an environmental sustainability initiative, but mostly as satisfying economic needs. Alternative discourses, however, challenge the dominant green growth perception that large-scale wind energy projects do not create other forms of social and economic injustices, although contributing to a low-carbon economic development. Despite the project’s good intent, inclusion in different project phases and high expectations on jobs, energy access and compensation for land among local communities have been hard to meet.

The results have provided four valuable lessons for how wind projects can account for just sustainability in a more holistic way. Firstly, the Kenyan government could direct more effort towards the electrification of rural Kenya. To break the monopoly they hold on distribution of energy, the government could consider policies that enable renewable energy developers to include access and availability for local communities as a form of compensation for land use. Secondly, and more fundamentally, the Kenyan case demonstrates, that, in line with just sustainability theories (Agyeman 2008), the grievances of locals are relevant for assessing the success of the project. Democracy and transparency in all project phases and respect for local cultural, historical and social context, can greatly add to a more equitable distribution of benefits. Thirdly, accounting for local grievances through benefit sharing schemes similar to those that already exist for fossil fuel exploration, or even more radical alternatives, such as democratic and equal ownership of the project or land where it is operated, is warranted. Finally, a call for the “commoning” of land and wind is discernible in the results. In line with radical research supporting strives towards energy sovereignty (Avila-Calero 2017) in countries of the Global South the results suggest the concept of “just land” (Obeng-Odoom 2021, 204–205) could provide an alternative avenue for further research and redirect the power of wind energy in Africa and beyond.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the anonymous reviewers of Local Environment and Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science Associate Professor Franklin Obeng-Odoom for encouragement, feedback and suggestions for improvement.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).