Solar Home Systems: A Comprehensive Literature Review For Sub-Saharan Africa

Solar home systems (SHSs) have seen rapid growth and have proven to be a viable source of electricity for households due to their capability to reach remote users that do not have access to grid systems. Based on a comprehensive literature review of 139 papers focussing on SHSs in Sub-Saharan Africa, this paper highlights the key trends, research gaps and policy recommendations. The literature was categorised into four themes: institutional, technology, viability and user-centric. The review finds that the current primary themes of research are technology, user-centric and viability. This highlights the need for further research into the institutional barriers of SHSs, as well as the regulatory frameworks and incentives needed to increase their adoption. The most popular topics discussed in the reviewed literature induded SHS business models, SHS design, the energy demand of end-users and barriers to SHS adoption. The authors also identified paucity of research in countries with low electrification rates, highlighting new locations for SHS research. (C) 2020 International Energy Initiative. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.