Solar PV and clean cookstove technology diffusion systems: Four case studies from Sub-Saharan Africa

To improve access to clean and modern energy services in rural Sub-Saharan Africa, donor-led interventions focus on promoting off-grid solar systems and improved and clean cookstoves. The general aim of these interventions is often to build and support markets for sustainable technologies. The Technology Diffusion System approach is a comprehensive framework to systematically analyse a (social) system around the commercial diffusion of technologies based on seven system functions. In this study, we analyse the perceived functional performance and functional barriers of systems focussed on the commercial diffusion of improved cookstoves in Tanzania and Uganda and off-grid solar photovoltaic systems in Mozambique and Benin. We find that the functions resource mobilisation and market formation are relatively weak in all four case studies. Creation of legitimacy is the strongest function overall. Across all four cases, limited access to finance, policy and regulatory challenges, limited awareness, weak and informal sectors, weak sector associations and lack of coordination are the dominant barriers reported. This paper showcases how major barriers that hold back the transition to cleaner energy systems can be identified and targeted by policies aiming at promoting clean cooking and off-grid power in Low- and Lower-Middle-Income countries.