6. Understanding Success and Failure in Distributed Electrification

The previous three chapters provided detailed information on the performance of the business models within each of the three countries included in the study. Each country had unique institutional arrangements and different types of business models, leading to quite different outcomes. However, this variation can also be used to determine whether there are overall trends in the performance of these different business models. This chapter uses the results from case studies in all three countries to draw conclusions regarding success and failure in distributed rural electrification. In the next three sections, the initial hypotheses developed in Chap. 2 are examined to determine whether they are supported by the evidence. In order to do this, we examine the impact of the business models on changes in electricity service, sustainability and replicability.