An Effort to Scale Solar in Africa Was a Victim of Its Own Success.

The resulting low prices in Zambia sent the wrong price signals to other African governments, which would be unable to match the economics of Scaling Solar's Zambia projects without those subsidies. Considering all of these benefits together, Emery finds that no private-sector bidder could come close to the same pricing that the IFC's participation enabled in Zambia. That record low was the result of the International Finance Corporation's Scaling Solar program, designed to help the world's least wealthy countries develop and build solar power without drawing on subsidies. [Extracted from the article]