Solar Home Systems: A comprehensive literature review for Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Solar home systems (SHSs) have seen rapid growth and have proven to be a viable source of electricity for households due to their capability to reach remote users that do not have access to grid systems. Based on a comprehensive literature review of 139 papers focussing on SHSs in Sub-Saharan Africa, this paper highlights the key trends, research gaps and policy recommendations. The literature was categorised into four themes: institutional, technology, viability and user-centric. The review finds that the current primary themes of research are technology, user-centric and viability. This highlights the need for further research into the institutional barriers, need for a regulatory framework and stronger incentives for scale-up of SHSs. PAYG systems are gaining ground in off-grid solar markets providing flexibility on payments for consumers in resource challenged settings. The authors also identified paucity of research in countries with low electrification rates, highlighting new locations for SHS research.

Mapping synergies and trade-offs between energy and the sustainable development goals: A case study of off-grid solar energy in Rwanda

“…Through the expansion of the range of super energy efficient appliances, which can support an ever wider set of productive activities, off-grid solar energy helps achieve resilient and sustainable industrialisation (SDGs 8, 9, 12), particularly through the application of solar mini/micro-grids. This has been achieved by fostering innovation, not only through technological and engineering advancements, but also through innovative business models (SDG9) (Bisaga, 2020;Kizilcec and Parikh, 2020).…”

Factors Influencing Household Adoption of Solar Home System in Baso Liben District, Amhara Regional State of Ethiopia

“…In Sub Saharan Afriica, most of the population is dependent on traditional fuel and only a small proportion of the households have access to the electric grid [26]. Since every country is different and the challenges they faced are not the same, all measures might not be the same for each of them [31].…”

A review on the sustainability of solar home system for rural electrification

“…It is important that promoters of SHSs are fully informed about the potential consequences of using these systems, and literature has often been an essential tool in extracting insights of practical relevance from SHS experiences, both positive and negative [4]. Methods of SHS research typically belong to one of three families; surveys concerning statistical analysis of primary data gathered from SHS users and stakeholders [5,6], case studies blending quantitative and qualitative methods to comment on the experience of SHSs in a particular country or set of circumstances, often in a comparative context and over a longer period of time than a survey paper [7,8] or literature reviews that synthesise existing publications to answer specific questions or make comments on broad observations [9,10,11,12]. Mixedmethods papers are also common [13,14] and it is occasionally difficult to distinguish between 'surveys' and 'case studies' which both handle primary data.…”