The socio-technical barriers and strategies for overcoming the barriers to deploying solar mini-grids in rural islands: Evidence from Ghana

Abstract

Energy access remains a challenge for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Ghana is no exception as 15% of her population live in remote areas without access to electricity. In 2015, the World Bank Group provided funding for the Ghanaian government to extend electricity to some of her rural island communities. The government of Ghana chose to deploy solar mini-grids. Despite technological breakthrough with solar mini-grids and financial support from the World Bank Group, the deployment of the solar mini-grids still faced significant barriers some of which are embedded in the socio-cultural contexts of the Ghanaian rural island communities. Designed through a socio-technical systems lens, this study explores the sociotechnical barriers and strategies to overcoming the barriers to deploying solar mini-grids in Ghanaian rural island communities. Data were collected through semistructured interviews, focus group discussions, and direct observations. The results show that different categories of barriers affected deployment of the solar mini-grids. The barriers are socio-technical in nature suggesting that the obstacles to renewable energy deployment in sub-Saharan Africa are neither exclusively social nor technical but a combination of both social and technical forces. While the social factors range from land disputes to illegal connections, the technical barriers include limited technical know-how to lack of qualified technicians. In suggesting strategies to address these barriers, the study participants proposed involvement of indigenes, training and transfer of technical expertise, and increased generation capacity. Based on these findings, the study outlines three policy implications on mitigating the barriers in future projects.