Off-Grid Enterprise: A Critical History of Small-Scale Off-Grid Solar in Sub-Saharan Africa

Limits of energy access research on unreliability

“…Behind the assumption that electricity is innately good (or at least something is better than nothing) lie assumptions about social power and responsibility that are rarely discussed within applied energy access research. Large‐scale electricity‐related infrastructure such as hydroelectric dams are “generally controversial” (Égré & Senécal, 2003, p. 215), in contrast, the push to “bring electricity to the last mile” through decentralized efforts has largely avoided serious criticism outside of the humanistic social sciences (see Cross & Neumark, 2021; Munro et al, 2022). The off‐grid renewables movement's ties to poverty alleviation, and reliance on large capital inflows from foreign donors and companies have generated some critique: “There's more than a whiff of colonialism about the rush of Westerners and western money into Africa” (McKibben, 2017).…”