Building Solar Programs That Can Survive Field Conditions
What we have learned, in plain language, from designing and assuring solar programs in places where the easy choices do not work.
- 01
Programs survive when they assume difficulty and budget for it; they fail when they assume normality and economise against it.
- 02
The cheapest hardware is rarely the cheapest program; the cheapest program is rarely the most reliable.
- 03
Local capacity is the only durable form of O&M. Everything else is a transition arrangement.
What field conditions actually mean
Field conditions in Sudan and comparable contexts are not occasional shocks against a normal baseline. They are the baseline. Dust storms, fuel shortages, currency depreciation, customs delays, sudden access changes, and institutional discontinuity are operating-environment features, not exceptions. A program that treats them as exceptions will be in continuous crisis.
Five design choices that compound
- Standardise hardware across the program — fewer SKUs, deeper spares, faster repairs
- Train and retain local technicians on a multi-year contract, not a one-off workshop
- Hold a 90-day spares buffer in-country, not in a supplier warehouse abroad
- Build alternative logistics routes into the procurement plan, not the contingency plan
- Publish performance quarterly — what gets measured publicly tends to get fixed
None of these are technical innovations. They are choices about what to take seriously at the design stage. Programs that take them seriously deliver. Programs that economise on them do not.
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