The good payers: Exploring notions of ownership in the sale of pay-as-you-go solar home systems

Abstract

Pay-as-you-go financing models have been heralded in the solar off-grid industry as the solution for making access to clean, renewable energy affordable. Further, they are understood by the solar sector as an engine for financial inclusion and as an opportunity to also fashion new consumer subjects for new markets ‘beyond energy’. This paper engages with notions of ownership in relation to pay-as-you-go solar home systems, exploring both with what motives and to what ends solar off grid companies sell the products as well as, in turn, the various registers and meanings of values that consumers attach thereto. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with consultants, investment advisors, employees and customers of off-grid solar companies, the paper argues that to gain a deeper understanding of how solar home systems are sold to off grid customers and what these products are ‘made to be’ as they are bought and put to use, a more fine-grained engagement with the wider significances of ‘creditworthiness’ is necessary. The various accounts discussed, foreground that products are valued for the basic form of electricity they provide, but have, at the same time, also become important symbolic markers of new consumerist practices and the establishment of creditworthiness more generally.