Rural Electrification Efforts Based on Off-Grid Photovoltaic Systems in the Andean Region: Comparative Assessment of Their Sustainability

Sarah Feron, Raúl R. Cordero and Fernando Labbe
Additional contact information
Sarah Feron: Institute for Sustainability Governance, Leuphana University Lüneburg, 21335 Lüneburg, Germany
Raúl R. Cordero: Department of Physics, Universidad Santiago de Chile, Santiago 9170124, Chile
Fernando Labbe: Department of Mechanics, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Valparaíso 2340000, Chile

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 10, 1-23

Abstract: In this paper, we comparatively assess the sustainability of rural electrification efforts based on off-grid solutions in Chile, Ecuador, and Peru. Our assessment considers four dimensions of sustainability (institutional, economic, environmental, and socio-cultural). We found that Ecuador and Chile have consistently failed to ensure mechanisms for the operation and maintenance of the deployed off-grid systems, which has made these solutions in poor Chilean and Ecuadorian communities inevitably unsustainable. Although Peru has adopted a cross-tariff scheme, the Peruvian case shows that ensuring the funding of off-grid PV solutions is not enough. Peruvian officials appear to be unaware of the importance of local participation (local values and lifestyles are constantly disregarded) and most of the projects have been designed without the participation and engagement of the communities, which has often led to project failures and payment defaults. However, although each country has its particular challenges, we found that the three Andean countries have consistently neglected the importance of strong formal institutions with a flexible and decentralized structure, which in turn significantly compromised the rural electrification effort in these countries.

Keywords: off-grid PV systems; rural electrification; developing countries; sustainable energy; Andean countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/10/1825/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/10/1825/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:10:p:1825-:d:114599

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().