Appliance Ownership and Aspirations among Electric Grid and Home Solar Households in Rural Kenya

Kenneth Lee, Edward Miguel and Catherine Wolfram

No 21949, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In Sub-Saharan Africa, there are active debates about whether increases in energy access should be driven by investments in electric grid infrastructure or small-scale “home solar” systems (e.g., solar lanterns and solar home systems). We summarize the results of a household electrical appliance survey and describe how households in rural Kenya differ in terms of appliance ownership and aspirations. Our data suggest that home solar is not a substitute for grid power. Furthermore, the environmental advantages of home solar are likely to be relatively small in countries like Kenya, where grid power is primarily derived from non-fossil fuel sources

JEL-codes: O18 Q42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-env
Note: DEV EEE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

Published as Kenneth Lee & Edward Miguel & Catherine Wolfram, 2016. "Appliance Ownership and Aspirations among Electric Grid and Home Solar Households in Rural Kenya," American Economic Review, vol 106(5), pages 89-94.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w21949.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Appliance Ownership and Aspirations among Electric Grid and Home Solar Households in Rural Kenya (2016)
Working Paper: Appliance Ownership and Aspirations among Electric Grid and Home Solar Households in Rural Kenya (2016)
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:nbr:nberwo:21949

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w21949

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().