Martina Schäfer, Noara Kebir, Daniel Philipp (editors) - TU Berlin

PROCEEDINGS Conference MPDES 2011
of Sri Lanka, the customers are dependent on the aftersales
service of solar firms, which from the point of view
of SHS users often is not satisfactory.
Problems in refinancing an SHS
In most cases of the third household type, monetary
income is too irregular and insufficient to pay the monthly
installments for the loan. Due to the very limited
economic use of SHS within this group, additional
monetary income to finance SHS is not available. In
comparison to the first and second household types, the
potential to substitute previous energy costs in the third
household type has been low, as they did not use car
batteries prior to SHS electrification. As there has been no
graduated subsidy available according income level,
financial assistance from the government has not been
sufficient for low income households, but has rather had a
bandwagon effect on well-off households.
Contribution towards poverty alleviation and income
generation for different types of users
All interviewees of the poor area in the district of
Moneragala stated that electrical light is an important
advancement for their lives. Children can learn much
better for school, domestic work can be done more
flexibly in the evening hours and security is improved,
because an open flame is no longer needed. Furthermore,
improved communication (charging of mobile phones)
and social participation opportunities were mentioned, for
example watching news on TV.
But, in contrast to households which could integrate
SHS into their livelihoods (e. g. for income generating
activities) or who were able to finance the SHS out of
their existing income, the households of the third type had
major problems with refinancing. Especially as these
households rely on irregular and precarious incomes, they
are not able to take over the accountability for making
monthly repayments. In cases of early breakdown of an
important part of the technical system (i.e., batteries),
already the second type of households can be faced with
difficulties in financing a replacement. For the low
income households of type three, this was nearly
impossible. The majority of this group could not receive
an additional loan from SEEDS, as they had not paid their
monthly installments properly. This appears to be the case
in most of the investigated households, as the SHS turns
into an additional burden, especially when they have to
finance kerosene oil for lamps to make up for the no
longer functioning electrical system, prompting them to
stop loan payments. Moreover, many representatives of
this group explained in the interviews that it is very
depressing to return to the poor light quality of a kerosene
lamp, after having had the experience of a bright electrical
light.
Discussion
We have shown that the interrelation between humans and
the SHS technology is different, depending on available
capital or monetary income of SHS users and their
available schemes for financing the SHS. First, the
influence of the functionality of the technology varies
according to whether users have the financial means to
replace inoperable equipment whenever necessary.
Moreover, the availability of different energy conversion
technologies or energy consuming appliances
characterises status on the “energy ladder”, with low
status being regarded as an indicator of poverty (Pachauri
& Spreng 2003). In comparison to financially extreme
poor households, the well-off households spent a higher
amount of money for their previous energy supply and
have been able to use the savings from the SHS to finance
it. In contrast, the group with irregular and precarious
income has enormous difficulties in financing the SHS via
micro loans, as the savings from previous energy costs are
not adequate for paying the loan installments. This group
often has no clear picture of their monthly income and is
largely incapable of assuming a regular financial burden.
Beside lacking monetary capital such households are
missing social and cultural capital (Bourdieu & Passeron
1990) that would help them to get an overview of their
real potential to finance SHS and to calculate their risk in
case of failure.
Most investigated households in Monaragala used the
electricity from SHS for consumption purposes (lighting,
TV, radio, charging of mobile phones). According to
Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach, this kind of usage
offers new opportunities to increase the quality of life of
people in rural areas, based on long-term considerations.
Furthermore, aspects of education and health are being
addressed, because children have much better conditions
to study for school with electrical light, and indoor air
pollution from smoky kerosene lamps can be avoided.
Generally the majority of the interviewed in Sri Lanka
declared that the new energy supply has improved their
quality of life and contributed towards poverty alleviation,
but has not led to an increase of income. Further case
studies, like the case study of Gisela Prasad regarding
SHS dissemination strategies in South Africa (Prasad
2007: 12), confirm these findings. With regard to
primarily market-oriented approaches, where even poor
users have to pay the major costs of the energy
infrastructure, this situation can easily lead to intensified
poverty due to inability to pay off debt. In the context of
the Sustainable Rural Livelihood Approach, SHS
dissemination strategies for poor customers need to be
adapted to enhancing their necessary assets and the
activities required for securing their livelihoods. The
strategy of financing applications for consumptive use
only does not fit into this approach.
In addition, in Sri Lanka the needs and local knowledge
of different users are not being integrated into the
strategies of developing, implementing and maintaining
SHS there. But, according to Akrich, “the success or
failure of innovations frequently depends on their ability
to cope with dissimilar users possessing widely differing
skills and aspirations” (Akrich 1995: 167). Users play an
important role in the conception and dissemination of an
innovation, whereas entrepreneurs mainly concentrate on
the production of equipment (Von Hippel 1976). The SHS
implementation model now being employed in Sri Lanka
focuses mainly on the distribution of a technological
product through enlargement of the solar market and
complementing the available SHS offerings with, for
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