Infrastructure failure in times of development as derisking: Is failing early the best we can hope for?

Renewable energy infrastructure is depicted as both essential to human life and a solution to the ecological crisis. Derisking – the removal of risks and the guarantee of returns to encourage private investment in green infrastructure – has been placed at the centre of environmental transition. In this article, we ask: what does failure mean for a derisked infrastructure project and, conversely, what does derisking mean for infrastructure failure? Drawing on the analysis of a failed hydropower project in Georgia, we argue that derisking prefigures and simultaneously exploits infrastructure failure. The deeply imbalanced distribution of risks and returns between the state and investors reduces the latter's motivation to ensure project viability. The extractivist character of derisked renewable infrastructure projects leads local social movements to conclude that the sooner a project fails, the less devastation and extraction it will cause. This makes cancelling such projects into an important political goal for these movements. Importantly, derisking enables investors to extract value even from cancelled infrastructure projects. We contribute to existing knowledge on derisking and renewable infrastructures by showing that not only accomplished infrastructure projects, but even the cancelled ones can engender extractivist dynamics by enabling investors to exploit project failure.