Sean Leong, Johannes Urpelainen, Abhishek Jain
April 2018 | Energy Transitions
Suggested Citation: Leong, Sean, Johannes Urpelainen, and Abhishek Jain. 2018. Using Solar Technologies to Increase Household Satisfaction with Power Supply. New Delhi: Council on Energy, Environment and Water.
Rural households’ subjective satisfaction with electricity access plays a decisive role in driving demand for off-grid technologies such as solar home systems. This policy brief examines the levels of satisfaction across technologies—grid electricity, solar home systems (SHS), and micro-grids (solar or diesel)—and investigates patterns of subjective satisfaction as they relate to average daily hours of electricity usage across users of different technologies.
The brief uses insights from Access to Clean Cooking Energy and Electricity: Survey of States (ACCESS) survey conducted in 2015, by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) in collaboration with Columbia University and Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation, in six major energy access-deprived states in India.
Source: CEEW analysis
Our analysis highlights a substantial challenge for governments responsible for grid extension and electricity delivery, especially in terms of improving the duration of supply to improve households’ subjective satisfaction.
Technologies such as solar home systems are valued by rural households where grid electricity is unavailable and unreliable.