The troubled path to ending darkness: Energy injustice encounters in Malawi's off-grid solar market. (November 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Samarakoon, Shanil
• Is Part Of: Energy research & social science. Volume 69(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-11
• Subjects: Energy Justice -- Solar Household Systems -- Africa -- Energy Ethics -- Off-grid Solar -- Energy Poverty; Power resources -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Energy consumption -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; 333.7905
• DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2020.101712
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2214-6296

Abstract

Abstract: Market-based solar products are widely accepted as being vital to addressing energy poverty in the Global South. In service to the aims of SDG 7, it is estimated that 740 million people, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, will benefit from solar products by 2022. However, while the improving sales volumes of solar products are celebrated as an encouraging development, there is limited discourse about the consequences of relying on off-grid solar markets to address energy poverty. In this paper I draw on ethnographic insights from Malawi to demonstrate how the combination of a shift in responsibility for provisioning electricity towards individual households, and a two-tiered, poorly regulated solar market, generate injustice in a Malawian setting. I go on to argue that off-grid solar markets tend to reproduce socio-economic inequities and thus do not represent a sustainable solution to the structural drivers of energy poverty. As recent research suggests that these broad dynamics persist across Sub-Saharan Africa, I argue that there is an urgent need to critically examine the intra and intergenerational consequences of the region's deepening policy reliance on solar markets to address energy poverty. To this end, the paper concludes with avenues for future research.