Technical and Socio-Economic Issues of Small Scale Solar PV Electricity Supply in Rural Ghana

摘要

In recent years, off-grid small-scale renewable energy technologies, particularly, solar PV systems have emerged as the plausible intervening solution for rural electricity supply in Ghana. However, the emerging solar PV solutions are exposed to the problem of being sustainable: after government and developing partners pull-out and hand over project to local users, the project only last few years of their life span. To investigate into this problem, the paper adopts a community solar system, a national project meant to be adopted as a standard for rural electrification in Ghana, for evaluation. Principal objectives of the paper are to identify the potential technical and socio-economic barriers of solar PV rural electrification, access the relevance of small-scale solar PV solutions in rural livelihood and determine if the community solar system project is worth recommending as national standard for rural electricity supply. The evaluation results reveal that frequent damage of systems’ components, misuse of systems, inability of systems to meet rural electricity demand, and financial insecurity are the major factors that could offset the success of the community solar system project or similar small-sale solar PV systems for rural electrification solutions. We advocate that the community solar system project is worth recommending under critical design considerations. Finally, we conclude that small-scale solar PV solutions do not present complete solution to rural electrification; however, in the meanwhile, they are necessary as intervening solutions and play key role in rural development.