Understanding long-term energy use in off-grid solar home systems in sub-Saharan Africa

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2502.14630
• Publication Date: 2025-02-20
• Authors: Rebecca Perriment; Vasco Mergulhao; Volkan Kumtepeli; Priti Parikh; Malcolm T. McCulloch; David A. Howey
• Keywords: FOS: Electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering; Systems and Control (eess.SY); Electrical Engineering and Systems Science - Systems and Control

Solar home systems provide low-cost electricity access for rural off-grid communities. As to them increases, more long-term data becomes available on how these are used throughout their lifetime. This work analyses a dataset of 1,000 across sub-Saharan Africa. Dynamic time warping clustering was applied the load demand from systems, identifying five distinct archetypal daily profiles and occurrence dataset. Temporal analysis reveals general decline in energy consumption over time, with 57% households reducing usage after first year ownership. On average, there is 33% decrease by end second compared peak demand, which occurs 96th day. Combining payment shows that this observed even not experiencing economic hardship, indicating reasons beyond financial constraints decreasing use once obtained.