A peer-reviewed study tracking 1 371 rural households in Malawi’s Lilongwe District has found that the country’s rapidly expanding off-grid solar sector is systematically bypassing its poorest citizens, raising questions about electrification targets promoted by the government and international development partners.
The research, published in August 2025 in the journal Energy Research & Social Science, was conducted by scholars from the University of Michigan, Duke University, Harvard University and Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
The study found that wealthier households were 2.51 times more likely to adopt a solar home system than poorer households.
Even when systems were installed, their capacity was extremely limited. The median solar device across the sample produced just six watts, barely above the five-watt threshold used by the World Bank to classify Tier 1 electricity access. At that level, electricity typically supports little more than phone charging and a single dim light.
Nearly 29% of households that owned solar devices abandoned them within 12 months, raising concerns about reliability, affordability and long-term usability.
Malawi has one of the lowest electricity access rates in the world. According to the International Energy Agency, only 14% of Malawians had electricity access in 2022, with rural access at 5.6%. Data from the World Bank places rural access slightly higher, at 6.1% in 2023.
In response, governments, development banks and private companies have increasingly promoted off-grid solar technology as the fastest route to rural electrification across sub-Saharan Africa.
But the new study, led by researcher Thomas Mahieu, challenges that narrative. Drawing on two survey waves conducted between 2022 and 2023, the researchers found that solar expansion is occurring but at levels that might not translate into meaningful energy access.
By the end of the study period, 33.7% of households owned at least one solar device, representing a 4.5 percentage-point increase over 12 months.
On paper, the growth appears encouraging. But the researchers caution that ownership alone is a poor indicator of real electricity access. The central issue is not whether households own solar devices but how much power those devices provide.
The Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme classifies Tier 1 electricity access as systems delivering five to 50 watts, sufficient for basic lighting and phone charging. Tier 2, above 50 watts, allows households to run small appliances such as TVs or fans.
In the Malawi study, only 11% of solar-owning households reached Tier 2. The remaining 89% remained at Tier 1 or below, using systems too weak to power productive appliances, support small businesses or provide reliable lighting for students.
At the start of the study, 75% of households had no qualifying electricity access — defined as less than five watts of solar capacity. After a year of sector growth, 70% remained in that category.
The researchers warn against conflating solar ownership with meaningful improvements in living standards.
“Policymakers should be careful to assume that binary indicators of solar ownership reflect energy access that supports major improvements in quality of life,” the authors write.
They note that assuming solar ownership automatically delivers meaningful energy services is “misguided”. The study’s most consequential finding concerns the distribution of solar access.
Wealthier households were 2.51 times more likely to adopt solar home systems and 1.84 times more likely to adopt standalone solar panels than poorer households.
Financial inclusion also proved decisive. Households with access to bank accounts, informal savings groups or mobile money services were 2.41 times more likely to own a solar home system.
The result is a structural paradox: technologies promoted as solutions to energy poverty are being adopted primarily by those least affected by it. Malawi’s experience mirrors a broader regional pattern.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) says sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 83.3% of the global electricity access deficit in 2022, up from 49.6% in 2010, even as other regions have made rapid progress.
The paradox is striking. Africa holds about 60% of the world’s best solar resources, yet 51% of its population lacks electricity.
To achieve universal access by 2030, the IEA estimates that electrification rates must triple and investment must double across the continent. The study also highlights a phenomenon rarely discussed in energy policy debates: solar disadoption.
Among households that owned solar devices, 28.6% had fewer devices after one year than at the beginning of the study, indicating a contraction in energy access. Among owners of standalone solar panels, the disadoption rate reached 40.1%.
Households abandoning systems typically fell from Tier 1 back to Tier 0, losing even the limited energy services previously available. Respondents cited device faults, unaffordable costs and declining need as reasons for abandoning systems.
Previous research in Malawi and elsewhere in the region has identified additional structural issues, including poor product quality, difficulties maintaining pay-as-you-go payments and a shortage of repair technicians.
A 2020 study by researcher Shanil Samarakoon, also published in Energy Research & Social Science, found that many faulty solar systems in Malawi remain unrepaired because of limited technical expertise.
The study concluded that the country’s off-grid solar market “does not offer a sustainable solution to energy poverty, instead reinforcing socioeconomic inequities”.
The research also identified notable gender dynamics. Female-headed households were nearly four times more likely to own a solar home system than male-headed households. The researchers suggest this might reflect targeted marketing campaigns by solar companies.
At the same time, female-headed households were 55% less likely to own standalone solar panels, which tend to offer more power per watt but are usually sold without pay-as-you-go financing.
The researchers question whether the marketing strategies genuinely expand women’s energy access or instead channel them toward debt-financed products that might be difficult to sustain.
To stimulate Malawi’s off-grid solar market, the government and the World Bank launched the Ngwee Ngwee Ngwee Fund, a $20 million (about R330m) market-development programme combining a $6-million results-based financing grant with a $14m debt facility.
The fund supports five solar companies: Yellow Solar, Zuwa Energy, Green Impact Technologies, VITALITE Group and StarTimes Media.
Its initial target was 200 000 new rural household connections by June 2024. According to programme records, the target was reached in October 2024, with more than 900 000 beneficiaries reported.
However, the independent household data collected in the study appears difficult to reconcile with those figures. In Lilongwe District, where companies supported by the fund operate, the researchers recorded only a 4.5 percentage-point increase in solar ownership during the study period.
Questions about Malawi’s electrification progress extend beyond the solar market. In early 2025, former energy minister Ibrahim Matola told parliament that rural electricity access had reached 25%, nearly triple the level recorded in 2020. That claim contrasts sharply with World Bank estimates placing rural access at 6.1% in 2023.
Infrastructure delivery has also lagged behind targets. The government’s Marep Phase 9 rural electrification programme, intended to connect 460 trading centres by 2024, had connected only 140 sites by September 2024 after missing two earlier deadlines.
Project costs also rose significantly, increasing from 40 billion Malawian kwacha (about R380m) to 70 billion kwacha, partly due to currency devaluation. The findings feed into a wider debate about how electricity access is measured globally.
Current reporting by the United Nations, the IEA and the World Bank counts households with as little as three watts of solar capacity as having electricity access.
The Malawi study suggests that threshold may be overly optimistic. With a median solar capacity of six watts, most households in the survey could do little more than charge a phone and power a single light bulb.
Global data points to similar limitations. The Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme and the Global Off-Grid Lighting Association estimate that only 158 million of the 490 million people served by off-grid solar worldwide use systems meeting international quality standards.
The central policy question confronting governments, development banks and solar companies is whether market-driven deployment models can reach the poorest households without direct subsidies.
The evidence emerging from Malawi suggests that they cannot.
A peer-reviewed study finds wealth inequality is locking the poorest households out of solar electrification