A socio-technical analysis of hybrid mini-grid performance in rural Benin: linking customer archetypes, load profiles, and outage dynamics

This study develops a socio-technical framework to assess the performance of hybrid solar mini-grids in rural Benin by combining high-resolution (15-minute) smart meter data over eighteen months with household surveys from two sites—Samonita and Gbowele. Customers are categorized into four income-based archetypes enriched with socio-economic variables, enabling the analysis of load profiles, outlier consumption patterns, and outage dynamics. System reliability is quantified using SAIFI and SAIDI, revealing stark contrasts between sites: Gbowele experiences 189 outages per year with 7.3% downtime, while Samionta faces only 16 outages per year with 0.5% downtime. On the demand side, new indices (CIFI and CIDI) capture credit-related disconnections, which affect nearly 98% of customers across both sites and account for approximately 9% of all zero-consumption events. Notably, affordability-driven interruptions result in customer downtime exceeding 21 days per client in Samionta, demonstrating that financial constraints can be as critical as technical failures. The findings underscore that achieving SDG7 requires integrated interventions on both supply and demand sides, including adaptive tariff schemes and tailored customer engagement, alongside technical optimization of mini-grid reliability.