Managing Solar PV adoption in rural Sub-Saharan Africa: insights from Zambia’s energy transition

This thesis investigates the governance, adoption, and livelihood implications of solar photovoltaic technology in rural Zambia. Although decentralised solar PV deployment has expanded rapidly, there remains a clearly defined research and policy gap in understanding how rural communities adopt, use, manage, and sustain these systems over time. Existing policy frameworks largely prioritise technical rollout while overlooking weak community engagement, informal governance arrangements, and the paradoxical use of ecologically damaging income sources, such as charcoal production, to finance solar technologies. This gap constrains effective and equitable energy transitions in rural contexts and limits the long-term sustainability of decentralised solar investments. Against this background, the principal aim of this study is to examine how solar PV adoption and management are shaped by community needs, environmental trade-offs, and the role of informal and non-state actors within the broader energy transition. This aim is important because without such understanding, decentralised energy policies risk reinforcing environmental degradation, social inequality, and system abandonment rather than delivering durable development benefits. The research was conducted over 30 months from October 2022 to May 2025 in Central Province (Kapiri and Mkushi Rural), Lusaka Province (Chongwe Rural) and Copperbelt Province (Chingola Rural, Luano). These sites were selected due to their high levels of off-grid solar penetration, active informal charcoal economies, limited formal waste management infrastructure for end-of-life solar products, and marked socio-ecological diversity. The study applies the Rural Development Stakeholder Hybrid Adoption Model, a theoretical framework developed in this thesis. This framework systematically examines behavioural, social, institutional, and environmental dimensions influencing rural energy transitions. Using 108 in depth interviews, 12 focus group discussions, and extensive participant observation, the study identifies several novel findings. First, the Clean Energy - Deforestation Paradox, whereby charcoal production and non-timber forest product harvesting are used to finance the acquisition of solar PV systems. Second, the critical role of peer learning and local ownership in sustaining solar use, defined in this study as the continued functional operation, maintenance, and long-term reliance on solar technologies for everyday energy needs. Third, the emergence of unregulated solar e-waste in off-grid regions, understood as the informal disposal, burial, burning, or unsafe storage of damaged or obsolete solar components outside formal waste management systems. Fourth, the previously underexplored influence of White commercial farmers in community solar PV adoption, electrification and infrastructure investment. The thesis concludes with policy recommendations that emphasise community participation, gender equity, integrated energy and environmental governance, financial innovation, and inclusive regulation, advancing a vision for just, locally grounded, and ecologically resilient solar energy transitions in Sub-Saharan Africa.