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Keywords:Solar photovoltaic power Levelized cost of electricity Cost of capital Financing cost Global LCOE model Grid parity analysis a b s t r a c tThe adoption of solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies has expanded rapidly in recent years, leading to suggestions that this growth, which occurred mostly in high-latitude countries with often low levels of sunshine, may have come at an unnecessarily high price. However, the factors influencing the cost of solar PV, and the subsidies required to sustain its uptake, include more than just the level of sunshine. While cross-country differences in technology costs are hard to ascertain, it is possible to account for the cost of capital on a country-by-country basis. In this paper, we therefore map the cost of solar PV globally, accounting for differences in both the solar resource and the financing cost in order to calculate the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) from solar PV systems in 143 countries. In contrast to the work of other researchers who typically treat financing costs as uniform across countries, our results suggest that the LCOE of solar PV systems in northern countries may in fact be lower than in equatorial countries, and high latitude countries may thus not have been an unwise location to subsidize the adoption of solar PV technologies in the past. Our results further suggest that efforts to expand PV installation in equatorial developing countries may benefit greatly from policies designed to make low cost finance more widely available, which underlines on-going efforts to "de-risk" low carbon investments.

We study the determinants of households' choices of lighting fuels in Kenya, including the option of using solar home systems (SHSs). The paper adds new evidence on the factors that influence the introduction and adoption of decentralized and less carbon-intensive energy sources in developing countries. We capitalize on a unique representative survey on energy use and sources from Kenya, one of the few relatively well-established SHSs markets in the world. Our results reveal some very interesting patterns in the fuel transition in the context of lighting-fuel choices. While we find clear evidence for a crosssectional energy ladder, the income threshold for modern fuel use -including solar energy use -is very high. Income and education turn out to be key determinants of SHSs adoption, but we also find a very pronounced effect of SHSs clustering. In addition, we do not find a negative correlation between grid access and SHSs use.

We study the determinants of households' choices of lighting fuels in Kenya, including the option of using solar home systems (SHSs). The paper adds new evidence on the factors that influence the introduction and adoption of decentralized and less carbon-intensive energy sources in developing countries. We capitalize on a unique representative survey on energy use and sources from Kenya, one of the few relatively well-established SHSs markets in the world. Our results reveal some very interesting patterns in the fuel transition in the context of lighting-fuel choices. While we find clear evidence for a crosssectional energy ladder, the income threshold for modern fuel use -including solar energy use -is very high. Income and education turn out to be key determinants of SHSs adoption, but we also find a very pronounced effect of SHSs clustering. In addition, we do not find a negative correlation between grid access and SHSs use.