Foreign actors, faster transitions? Co-evolution of complementarities, perspectives and sociotechnical systems in the case of Indonesia’s electricity supply system

Abstract

Some low- and middle-income countries go through a transition to a coal-based electricity system as a way of overcoming the trilemma between energy security, equity, and sustainability. Foreign actors have played a role in addressing bottlenecks in energy transitions and can affect the speed and direction of transition. However, the literature on both the geography and temporality of transitions provides a limited understanding of how different dimensions and layers, as well as domestic and foreign actors, interact and complement each other in the course of transition toward a coal-based electricity supply system. To fill this research gap, this paper provides rigorous supporting evidences to the concept of complementarities in the electricity supply system, making it operationalize for empirical analysis. The case study of Indonesia finds that transition is hastened by interplay between foreign investors and domestic actors that addresses multiple complementarity bottlenecks in a package. China plays a distinct role among large foreign coal power investors in the transition to a coal-based system by providing both tangible and intangible resources to address complementarity bottlenecks in the crisis period, and in more acceptable terms of conditions to domestic actors who exert power to influence decisions and political goals in their favor.