Building a Market for Off-Grid Solar Lighting

The document identifies key barriers to the adoption of off-grid solar lighting in India, including kerosene subsidies, non-market-based promotion policies, financing bottlenecks, and poor quality assurance. It argues that transitioning from kerosene to solar can provide significant health, educational, and environmental benefits while saving the Government of India approximately INR 600 per household annually.

• Kerosene subsidies in India create an uneven playing field, extending the payback period for entry-level solar lanterns to approximately 11 months, compared to as little as three months in countries like Kenya or Tanzania where such subsidies do not exist.
• Government initiatives that distribute solar lamps for free or at highly subsidized rates can destabilize the market by killing competition, creating dependency, neglecting after-sales service, and undermining consumer buy-in.
• Financial barriers hinder solar uptake because poor rural consumers often lack collateral and banks are frequently absent from remote areas, leading to high transaction costs for small loans.
• The lack of developed and enforced quality assurance frameworks in India leads to the distribution of faulty equipment, which damages the sector's reputation and impedes long-term penetration.
• Transitioning to off-grid solar lighting offers substantial health and social benefits, including the potential to prevent nearly 500,000 premature deaths annually in India caused by indoor air pollution from kerosene lamps.
• Environmental benefits of a full solar transition in India include an estimated annual saving of 34 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

APA

Jena, A., & Natrajan, H. (2017). Building a Market for Off-Grid Solar Lighting. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/building-market-off-grid-solar-lighting.pdf

Chicago

Jena, Ankita, and Hari Natrajan. Building a Market for Off-Grid Solar Lighting. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2017. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/building-market-off-grid-solar-lighting.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Jena |first1=Ankita |last2=Natrajan |first2=Hari |title=Building a Market for Off-Grid Solar Lighting |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=August 2017 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/building-market-off-grid-solar-lighting.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{jena2017building, author = {Jena, Ankita and Natrajan, Hari}, title = {{Building a Market for Off-Grid Solar Lighting}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2017}, month = aug, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/building-market-off-grid-solar-lighting.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }