Solar home systems

Numerous studies have concluded that provision of credit would contribute to widespread deployment of SHS among populations otherwise deprived of the access to modern electricity services. Paradoxically, offering credit also represents a significant source of risk to the creditors, given the nature of the product and the specifics of the market. Pre-payment systems could offer a way out of this impasse and programme designers could do well to pay greater attention to the development, testing and deployment of such systems. Sunderasan Srinivasan, Solar Energy Society of India reports.