Keywords

Renewables; market transformation; photovoltaics; solar home systems; buydown

Abstarct

A growing number of rural African households are using small solar home systems (SHS) to obtain better access to lighting, television and radio. Various non-governmental organizations, multilateral institutions and international aid agencies have catalysed these markets, partially motivated by a desire to reduce global carbon emissions. This chapter assesses the carbon mitigation potential of African SHS markets, concluding that direct carbon displacement will be limited. Indirect benefits from helping the global photovoltaics (PV) industry scale up production and bring down costs via the manufacturing experience curve will be larger, but still trivial relative to grid-connected markets. Nonetheless, by 2025 SHS could provide cost-effective basic electricity to a substantial share of rural households, and grid-connected PV could make an important contribution to overall electricity needs in Africa.

INTRODUCTION

The Kyoto Protocol under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) allows for the creation of a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Under the CDM, so-called ‘Annex’ countries that take on binding carbon abatement commitments may be able to partially comply by supporting initiatives that reduce greenhouse gas emissions in ‘non-Annex’ countries. Solar home systems (SHS) represent one possible arena for generating such trades of money and technology for abatement credits, and Africa is an important part of the current and potential market for SHS.