I can't say this is at all surprising. My experience in providing rural communities with electricity is somewhat analagous to what is being said about micro-credit.

I've been working on rural electrification in a small developing country for the last 7 months. Donors and NGOs are always banging on about how access to electricity will lead to income-generating and educational activities among the villagers, eg. they could buy a bamboo-cutting machine or study textbooks at night under fluorescent lamps.

But we invariably find that apart from lighting, the first thing most households do when they get electricity is buy a home stereo system or a tv and satellite dish. One of my colleagues scoured the countryside for evidence of income-generating activities and the best he could find was a bunch of villagers sorting farm produce under a lamp.

So like micro-credit, it seems that access to electricity is more about making life in rural communities more convenient than it is about climbing out of poverty.