Solar energy for poverty alleviation in China: State ambitions, bureaucratic interests, and local realities

摘要: Abstract In 2014, China announced an ambitious plan to help alleviate rural poverty through deploying distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in poor areas. The energy for alleviation programme (SEPAP) aims add over 10 GW capacity and benefit more than 2 million households from around 35,000 villages across the country by 2020. This article investigates implications of initiative discourse analysis policy documents a case study its implementation remote largely pastoralist county Guinan, Qinghai province on Tibetan plateau. illustrates constraints implementing SEPAP contested local perspectives buildout ostensibly low carbon infrastructure electricity generation. particular, it raises new limits state-led push underdeveloped areas, without proper incentive mechanisms bureaucrats non-state actors, or independent oversight “top-down” process.