Increasing Awareness, Availability, Affordability, and Acceptance of CFLs in Khayelitsha, South Africa: Challenges and Opportunities

Jiwan S. Acharya, University of Flensburg, Germany/United Mission to Nepal

Keywords

Abstract

The Efficient Lighting Initiative (ELI) currently being implemented in South Africa, jointly funded by the South African utility Eskom and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), addresses technical, marketing, and institutional barriers to energy-efficient lighting, specifically compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). This paper reports on a study in Khayelitsha, a black township near Cape Town, South Africa, just prior to the January 2001 implementation of ELI. The study assessed local Awareness, Availability, Affordability, and Acceptance of CFLs. The paper presents recommendations, based on the study results, about how to overcome barriers to adoption of CFLs. These recommendations include proposed approaches to increasing consumer awareness and acceptance of CFLs, financial incentives and mechanisms to make CFLs more affordable, and distribution strategies to ensure that CFLs are readily available. The findings and recommendations described for Khayelitsha may be useful for design and implementation of programs to promote energyefficient lighting in other parts of the world.