Urbanizing on the ruins of solar: Secondhand photovoltaics, repair, and subaltern urbanization in Bhojpur Dharampur (India)

Source abstract

This article examines the secondhand solar photovoltaic (PV) market of Bhojpur Dharampur, a small town in western Uttar Pradesh, India, where discarded panels are repaired, adapted, and resold to underserved rural households and small businesses. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2019 and 2026, including interviews with wholesalers, resellers, and customers, it shifts the focus from what discarded solar objects become to what their afterlives make. Building on a local history of scrap trading and Muslim biradari kinship ties, traders combine repair, voltage adaptation, storage, warranties, credit, reputation, and resale networks to convert the material ruins of India’s energy transition into workshops, commercial streets, jobs, and a specialized regional market. The article contributes to debates on repair, energy justice, and subaltern urbanization by showing that small-town centrality can emerge not only from demographic growth or industrial relocation, but also from the situated reworking of discarded infrastructures produced elsewhere. Yet the same circuits that provide affordable electricity and livelihoods also concentrate materials that cannot be repaired, resold, or safely recycled. Solar repair thus supports urban specialization while redistributing residual ecological exposure onto already marginalized peripheral towns.