How solar home systems temporally stimulate increasing power demands in rural households of Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Small solar home systems (SHS) have emerged as potential alternatives to grid electrifications, enabling households to make modest investments into their power systems, and to modify those systems according to their changing economic circumstances and power demands. Study shows that introduction to basic electricity access temporally stimulates increasing power demands in rural households, leading to eventual installations of larger systems that can power more electric appliances. Specifically, study shows that once households get access to basic electricity, they get to realise the socio-economic benefits of it and start to desire more appliances, with TV being the most desired appliance, followed by stereo systems, small fridges, and small cooling fans. These desires are realised temporally with increasing household incomes, leading to increasing loads, and thus to the modifications of the originally installed small SHS, to meet those increasing load demands; the desire for luxurious appliances leads to activities that contribute to increased household incomes, and thus to the modifications of the initial SHS. Acquisitions of luxury appliances lead to improvements in quality of life and to improved esteem visibility and social status within the local communities. Potentially, increasing load demands within a given community could lead to extensions of the national utility grid to those areas, as total loads justify such investments. SHS therefore potentially act as grid electrification stimulators, leading to eventual grid electrification of a given community.