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Paper short abstract

This paper explores the rise and fall of Black Star Energy, a private sector-led initiative in Ghana's minigrid landscape. The study highlights the roles of crisis-driven reforms, regulatory discretion, and shifting elite sponsorship in both enabling and reversing policy experimentation.

Paper long abstract

While energy transitions are often framed as universally progressive, in countries like Ghana, they unfold within entrenched geopolitical and domestic political realities. In 2014, Black Star Energy (BSE), a private company, entered Ghana’s rural electrification landscape through the deployment of small-scale renewable minigrid systems. By 2018, it had developed minigrids across 15 communities, with ambitious plans to expand access to many unelectrified communities by 2030. BSE gained recognition from the donor community as evidence of how private-led minigrids could accelerate universal access and deliver improved energy service in developing country contexts. Despite this praise and the aspiration for wider coverage, BSE’s momentum was halted in 2019 following a Government of Ghana policy directive mandating a public-led model for minigrids. The BSE case presents a paradox in the politics of energy reform, which this paper addresses through a set of interrelated questions. How and why did a temporary opening for private-led minigrid emerge in Ghana’s state-dominated electricity distribution system? What political, regulatory, and institutional dynamics shaped BSE’s rise and exit? And what does the withdrawal of BSE’s opening imply for long-term survival of reforms in Ghana’s green energy transition efforts? This paper draws upon in-depth interviews with government officials, donor agencies, private sector actors, and energy experts, as well as extensive documentary reviews. The study offers critical reflections on the fragility of renewable energy reforms and the contingent nature of private sector participation in contexts where global ambitions for sustainable energy must ultimately be mediated through local political and institutional realities.