Climate & Environment

Solar Home System (SHS)

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Definition

A solar home system is a standalone photovoltaic kit — panel, battery, controller and outlets — providing electricity to households without grid access, powering lighting, phone charging, fans, radios, televisions and increasingly efficient appliances. Distributed commercially across Africa and South Asia, often through pay-as-you-go (PAYGo) mobile-money financing, SHS have brought basic electricity to hundreds of millions of people and form the largest segment of the off-grid solar market tracked by GOGLA and the World Bank's Lighting Global programme.

References

www.gogla.orgBulk import source

Source imported for editorial provenance.

www.lightingglobal.orgBulk import source

This reference provides supporting context for how “Solar Home System (SHS)” is defined and used.

Overview

How it is used

The product category structures energy access policy (SDG 7), results-based financing programmes, off-grid regulation and rural development planning.

Why it matters

The SHS is the most successful market-based development technology of its generation — proof that the world's poorest can be customers rather than beneficiaries.