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Solar Power and its Discontents: Critiquing Off‐grid Infrastructures of Inclusion in East Africa
Author(s) -
Cross Jamie,
Neumark Tom
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
development and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-7660
pISSN - 0012-155X
DOI - 10.1111/dech.12668
Subject(s) - inclusion (mineral) , solar power , grid , grid parity , electricity , renewable energy , equity (law) , business , economy , economic growth , economics , distributed generation , power (physics) , political science , sociology , engineering , geography , social science , electrical engineering , physics , geodesy , quantum mechanics , law
ABSTRACT Since 2010, solar energy companies in North America and Europe have played a pivotal role in delivering clean, reliable and sustainable electricity to millions of people living off the grid across sub‐Saharan Africa. However, today, off‐grid solar energy in Africa is no longer seen as an unmitigated social and economic good. Inflows of private equity investment have led the employees and customers of off‐grid solar companies to question the industry's commercial dynamics. Their critiques address the mis‐selling of solar home systems and the technical limits of off‐grid infrastructures for domestic production, framed both by dominant market paradigms and by relationships to nation, community and family. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in East Africa's off‐grid solar industry, this study assembles these critical perspectives into a wider analysis of off‐grid solar power as an adverse ‘infrastructure of inclusion’.