What drives solar energy adoption in developing countries? Evidence from household surveys across countries

Highlights

• We analyse actual uptake of solar home systems using household surveys for 11 developing countries.

• Being rural, having a higher income, and lacking access to the grid are all identified as drivers of solar use.

• We do not find evidence that households in sunnier areas are more likely to have solar home systems across countries.

• Policymakers may consider supporting households far from capital cities, in sunnier regions, and with low levels of assets.

Abstract

This study investigates household solar energy uptake in developing countries by combining household surveys for 11 countries with area-level data. We use data from World Bank surveys for countries in Africa, Asia, and Central America. Our probit regressions use up to 36,653 household observations and cover actual uptake rather than intentions. The main result shows that households further from capital cities are less likely to have solar home systems. Furthermore, there are strong links between assets and solar uptake across solar types such as solar home systems, solar lighting systems, and solar lanterns. This is an important finding given the small number of prior studies that use actual uptake data for developing countries and the mixed results from prior literature. We do not find evidence that households in sunnier areas are more likely to have solar home systems across countries. This study motivates policymakers to consider greater support for households far from capital cities, in sunnier regions, and with low levels of assets.