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programme, but also because of the compatibility of developing solar energy to the unique environment of Bangladesh. Located near the equator, Bangladesh receives an abundant amount of radiation (about 4kWh–6.5kWh per square meter). Moreover, Bangladesh has a history of SHS use going back to the 1970s, when the Rural Electrification Board (REB) started promoting it in rural areas as a substitute to grid extension. SHS can be easily installed and maintained with minimal amounts of training, have lower operating costs than other renewable energy options, and do not produce unpleasant smells or pollution (unlike biogas units) (Islam 2010a). As one of our interview respondents explained: Î We don’t even know the technical potential for small-scale wind energy in Bangladesh, no one has done the assessments or wind mapping, the country has no fossil fuels other than natural gas, which is running out, and we sit on a really flat delta, meaning we have lots of water but it’s not moving, making hydroelectricity difficult. Our susceptibility to natural disasters also creates a strong incentive to decentralise and diversify sources of energy production. Demarcation and political issues prevent us from importing a large amount of electricity from West Bengal (India) or Myanmar. SHS are an obvious fit to the contextual challenges facing Bangladesh.
These factors likely explain why SHS constitute more than 90 percent of current renewable energy deployment in the country (Islam 2010a). The typical SHS consists of a solar photovoltaic module, battery, charge controller, and lamp shown in Figure 4. Customers in off-grid and rural areas could initially choose from a variety of systems and technologies from a 20 Watt-peak (Wp) system to a 130Wp system presented in Table 1 (though the inventory of systems was later expanded to include 10Wp systems to better accommodate the poorest customers). We relied on research interviews and field research as our primary sources of data, qualitative methods, for multiple reasons. The use of semi-structured questions, sometimes referred to as “intensive interviewing” or “responsive interviewing,” asks participants a set of standard inquiries but then allows the conversation to build and deviate to explore new directions and areas.8 Though this method has some challenges, we relied on it because many of the variables of interest to us, such as the ongoing energy challenges facing Bangladesh, or the benefits of SHS programmes, are difficult to measure, and to describe them with quantitative methods would amount to “conceptual stretching” by “lumping together dissimilar cases to get a larger sample.”9
Figure 4: A typical solar home system (SHS) in Bangladesh