Defining a solar energy entrepreneur

This editorial conceptualises and defines “solar energy entrepreneurship” within the broader landscape of renewable energy-based rural development and green enterprise formation. It argues that solar energy entrepreneurship extends beyond conventional notions of small business activity in the energy sector, encompassing a diverse range of actors who engage in the deployment, utilisation, maintenance, and commercialisation of solar technologies to generate livelihood opportunities and local value creation. In rural South Asian contexts, particularly India and Bangladesh, the diffusion of Solar Home Systems (SHS) and related technologies has enabled the emergence of micro-enterprises that integrate energy access with income-generating activities, including handicrafts, agro-processing, mobility services, and household-based production systems.

The editorial situates solar energy entrepreneurship at the intersection of green entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, and sustainopreneurship, emphasising its embeddedness within multi-actor ecosystems involving community institutions, NGOs, public agencies, and financial intermediaries. It further highlights that solar energy entrepreneurship is not solely a market-driven phenomenon, but a socio-institutional process shaped by governance arrangements, capability-building, and local adaptation. The paper contributes by offering a working definition of solar energy entrepreneurship as an embedded, multi-functional, and development-oriented form of entrepreneurship enabled by decentralised renewable energy systems.