Territoire en Mouvement (Sep 2022)
L’artisanat de la réparation solaire à Nairobi (Kenya) : sur les apories d’une politique électrique « soutenable »
Abstract
Decentralized solar electrification solutions hold out the hope, in Kenya as well as more broadly in sub-Saharan Africa, of local development respecting the environment and creating jobs. By focusing on the maintenance, repair and recycling of solar photovoltaic equipment, the article compares these expectations with the effects of Kenya's solar policy on the evolution of a sector that is generally considered to provide local employment and whose environmental contribution to a resource-efficient circular economy, conducive to recycling and reuse, is potentially important. First, it shows that the Kenyan strategy of developing a dynamic solar market has little effect on repair activities: on the one hand, the fundis, artisans of a pre-existing urban economy of repair and recycling, are bypassed by the sector's dominant companies; on the other hand, repair occupies a marginal place in the business models of these companies. It then underlines that repair services and know-how are progressively rendered obsolete by the increasing integration of disposable microelectronic components in solar equipment, and questions the environmental consequences of an industry producing increasing quantities of waste in a context where their management remains problematic. In light of these observations, it finally discusses the ambiguities of an electrical policy presented as favorable to the emergence of a new relocalized green economy.
