Exploring the link between products and services in low-income markets: Evidence from solar home systems

One of the key challenges of energy access in emerging markets and developing countries is how to reach households and communities that are unlikely to get a grid connection in the long term or those that are connected to the grid but suffer from regular blackouts or low voltage. By surveying entrepreneurs selling Solar Home Systems (SHSs) on a commercial basis in emerging and developing countries, this study is one of the first attempts to quantify the key elements of four potential Product Service Systems (PSSs): Cash, Credit, Leasing and Fee-for-Service. Whereas the Fee-for-Service approach was found to be suitable only under certain conditions, all PSSs share two key elements for successful market deployment: one or more years of maintenance, and customer support in financing these customers' new asset. Moreover, it appears that private sector companies are in principle able to deliver SHSs to households with incomes greater than USD 1000 per year. The implications for policy makers and development aid agencies are, first, to include maintenance services into public programmes or public-private partnerships and, second, to explicitly consider financial risks for entrepreneurs (e.g. customer commitment and repayment conditions). © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Exploring technology diffusion in emerging markets: The role of public policy for wind energy

This study challenges the implicit assumption of homogeneity in national institutional contexts made in past studies of (renewable) energy policy. We propose that institutional differences matter by focusing on several technology-specific and generic policy factors that can foster technology diffusion through private sector activity. More specifically, we explore perceptions of early adopters in emerging economy contexts using wind park project developers as an example. By applying a parsimonious method for our questionnaire as well as qualitative data we make several contributions: Methodologically, we introduce Maximum Difference Scaling to the energy policy domain. Empirically, we identify several public influences on private investment, and assess their relative importance. This leads to new insights challenging findings from industrialized economies; we identified additional institutional barriers to diffusion, hence, the requirement of a combination of technology-specific and generic policy measures. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe