Off-grid Solar Products Going Circular: Exploring the potential for repair, refurbishment and remanufacturing strategies and business models for Solar Home Systems and Solar Lanterns in India

Abstract: Off-grid solar products play an essential role in increasing and improving rural energy access, thereby reducing poverty and mitigating climate change. Experiencing fast market growth in Central and Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, off-grid solar products will represent 50% of the newly established electricity connections in the world between 2017 and 2030. Despite such benefits and market success, there is an increasing concern among academia and policymakers about the end-of-life management of solar PV. As a response to issues of natural resources depletion and waste generation, the concept of the circular economy and the role of circular business models have gained momentum amongst academia and practitioners. Nevertheless, the off-grid solar industry still mostly follows the “take, make, dispose” mantra of the linear economy. Consequently, this research seeks to explore how circular business models could be designed to extend the product life of two major categories of off-grid solar products: solar home systems (SHS) and solar lanterns (SL). This research used an explorative case study design taking India as a relevant market. It concludes that, among the three studied product extension strategies, repair and maintenance services would be prioritised in India by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and Original Equipment Suppliers (OESs), over refurbishment and remanufacturing. Four strategies to accelerate repair and maintenance are presented, leading to the proposition of a new repair and maintenance business model. Accelerating the uptake of repair business models in the industry could benefit from the integration of repair and maintenance services and their monitoring into governmental schemes’ tendering requirements. The findings demonstrate that numerous market and policy barriers still compromise the attractiveness of refurbishment strategies. However, the research suggests large OEMs and OESs to pilot refurbishment activities for SHS in the Indian market to further understand how to operationalise refurbishment strategies into viable business models. Areas of future research include defining in greater detail business model components for the proposed repair business model as well as conducting a comparative study using an action-based research methodology to enhance the process of circular business model innovation.