The ‘grey’ areas of the ‘green’: Assessing capabilities and distributional justice impacts of decentralised solar energy schemes in India

• Analysis of local-level distributional justice impacts of the PM-KUSUM scheme • A capability-centred energy justice framework is useful in assessing justice impacts beyond technological and economic outcomes, focusing on the distribution of real opportunities among and within households • Solar projects create many opportunities, but their distribution across groups is shaped by pre-existing inequalities in resources and conversion factors • Renewable energy policies often consider technology as a neutral solution, overlooking social and institutional differences, perpetuating a cycle of exclusion. • Solar policies and schemes should adopt a gender inclusive approach that recognises social norms and structural constraints shaping women’s ‘real’ participation The global push towards solar energy is widely viewed as a pathway to sustainable development; however, energy justice literature highlights that without context-specific design, the energy transition may perpetuate socio-economic inequalities. This paper explores the ‘grey areas’ of the green energy transition by examining the distributional justice implications of decentralised solar energy projects in India. It focuses on the PM-KUSUM scheme, which aims to solarise the agricultural sector and improve farmers' incomes, and analyses how the potential opportunities created by the scheme across entrepreneurship, income, employment, and electricity access are translated into real opportunities. It seeks to evaluate the distribution of these opportunities locally and identify who is included or excluded, and why. Using an energy justice framework grounded in Sen’s Capability Approach, the research employs qualitative methods, including document analysis, field observations, and fifty semi-structured interviews with solar power generators, landowners, women, residents, and government officials. The findings show that although the scheme creates multiple opportunity pathways, the ability to access and utilise these opportunities is unevenly distributed. High capital requirements, land ownership norms, technical skill demands, and bureaucratic processes disproportionately favour affluent and well-connected farmers, reflecting barriers at both the design and implementation stages. The study highlights that achieving inclusive energy transitions requires decentralised renewable energy policies that move beyond technology deployment and address structural conditions that shape access to emerging opportunities. Targeted institutional support, inclusive financing mechanisms, integration of women collectives, and farmer capacity-building are important for enabling decentralised solar to function not only as a technological solution but also as a socially just and transformative pathway for rural development.