Household Adoption of Solar Energy in Pakistan: Insights from Nationally Representative Data for Achieving Seventh Sustainable Development Goal

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Abstract
Several studies have investigated the association between socio-economic factors and household solar photovoltaic energy adoption. However, the extent to which household income and education contribute to the adoption of clean energy and discourage the use of dirty energy sources remains relatively unexplored. Therefore, using nationally representative data from the Pakistan Social and Living Measurement Survey 2018-19, we first applied Tukey’s test to examine the income and education differences among the main lighting source adopters. We then applied multinomial logit regression to estimate the odds of choosing each main lighting source. Lastly, we run simulations to identify the role of income and education in the adoption of the main lighting source. The results suggest that income and education significantly differ among the adopters of dirty fuel, solar energy, and electricity from the grid. Income, education, number of rooms in the home, and male household head are all positively associated with the adoption of solar energy in comparison to dirty fuels. Our simulation analysis shows that, as income and education of the household increase, grid-sourced electricity remains the most preferred source of lighting. This suggests that shifting electricity production from fossil fuels to cleaner, sustainable, and renewable resources would reduce the adverse environmental, health, and economic impact. Moreover, our results suggest that solar photovoltaic energy may be more suitable for rural areas where the transmission cost of electricity is high. Our findings are crucial for developing targeted policies to meet the UN’s seventh Sustainable Development Goal, which focuses on ensuring affordable and clean energy in Pakistan and other developing countries.

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