From exposure to preference: How solar electrification experiences shape long-term sustainability in rural Pakistan

Rural electrification initiatives involving the dissemination of solar home systems (SHS) are regarded as an important puzzle piece in the push toward the Sustainable Development Goal of universal electrification. Yet, the evidence on the long-term socioecological implications of such projects remains scarce. Based on a survey of n = 1206 households, this paper examines a large-scale SHS electrification program implemented in rural Sindh, Pakistan, combining a propensity-weighted observational comparison with a life-cycle assessment and a discrete choice experiment. While we are able to identify appliance uptake among beneficiary households, we also find that about ten years after SHS dissemination, only one-third retained a functioning system. We show that this limited durability hampers socioeconomic benefits and severely compromises the project's energetic-payback efficiency: under realistic assumptions, most households fall short of achieving meaningful energy payback thresholds. We also find that households with positive long-term SHS experience exhibit a significantly higher willingness to pay for sustainability indicators, whereas negative experience erodes trust in such quality signals. Reflecting the notion behind our findings, we highlight the concept of conditional durability-based sustainability. In doing so, this study contributes a novel lens to debates on sustainable energy access and long-term market formation in the Global South. • We integrate quasi-experimental, life-cycle and discrete choice experiment methods. • A decade post-project, only one-third of solar home systems remained functional. • Low durability undermines both socioeconomic impacts and energy payback efficiency. • User experience shapes willingness to pay for quality-certified solar products. • A novel lens of conditional durability-based sustainability is proposed.