UPSC Prelims 2022 · CSAT (Paper 2) · Q21
Medium · Passage: validity of assumptions
Read the following passage and answer the item that follows. Your answer to this item should be based on the passage only.
Solar panel costs have fallen sharply worldwide over the past decade, driven mainly by manufacturing scale-up and design improvements concentrated in a handful of large producing countries. Many smaller, import-dependent economies have adopted these panels only slowly, even where sunlight is abundant, because installation know-how, financing for upfront costs and after-sales servicing have not spread at the same pace as the hardware itself. Where local technicians have been trained and financing schemes tailored to small households have been introduced, adoption has picked up quickly even without any further fall in the price of the panels themselves.
Based on the above passage, the following assumptions have been made:
1. Falling hardware prices alone are sufficient to guarantee widespread adoption of solar panels.
2. Local technical capacity and financing access can matter as much as hardware price in determining adoption.
Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?