this has both increased the costcompetitiveness of offgrid technologies and broadened the range of technologies available to satisfy different energy needs table increasingly larger shss are also being used by community facilities such as schools and rural health centres in unelectrified rural areas bhatia and angelou however policies have also played a critical role particularly through awarenessraising qualityassurance programmes grants and soft loans and tariffs and tax reductions scott and miller africa progress panel while by no means transformational household ownership of basic energy systems can provide meaningful savings and welfare improvements