Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages
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Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages
#2For years (decade? decades?) this has been the promise of distributed solar and storage, and been analogized to how developing countries leapfrogged to wireless telecom without the expensive wired last-mile telecom stage.
The grid is very valuable, but it's also very expensive, and as storage and solar get really cheap, while grid costs stay stagnant, we may arrive at a future for which decentralized, disconnected microgrids are the cheapest energy solution for large chunks of the world.
Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages
#3I think I use the same generator for my RV.
Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages
#4For years (decade? decades?) this has been the promise of distributed solar and storage, and been analogized to how developing countries leapfrogged to wireless telecom without the expensive wired last-mile telecom stage. The grid is very valuable, but it's also very expensive, and as storage and solar get really cheap, while grid costs stay stagnant, we may arrive at a future for which decentralized, disconnected mi…
I'm not convinced that this is a case of leapfrogging.
Off grid solar+storage is great when you and everyone around you is using very little electricity. It lets you go from "nothing" to "lightbulb at night" very cheaply, which is a huge improvement.
Once you're using tons of electricity, list a 1st world home does (refrigeration/ac/microwaves/electric ovens/electric stoves/washing machines/vehicles/...), storage would have to be absurdly cheap for it to not be worthwhile to start hooking homes together to load balance and reduce (not eliminate) the need for storage. And then the same logic applies to hooking up cities/towns/villages. And in the end it almost certainly turns out that by the time you're a huge consumer of electricity like the 1st world you have a grid.
A different path, but the same end result.
Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages
#5Indonesia has brought electricity to millions of people in recent years, going from 85% to nearly 97% coverage between 2005 and 2020, according to World Bank data. But there are still more than half a million people in Indonesia living in places the grid doesn’t reach.
While barriers still remain, experts say off-grid solar programs on the island could be replicated across the vast archipelago nation, bringing renewable energy to remote communities.
Helping kids study, parents make money, people get together to watch shows on cell phones. It's a big deal and helps them connect to the larger world.
Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages
#6For years (decade? decades?) this has been the promise of distributed solar and storage, and been analogized to how developing countries leapfrogged to wireless telecom without the expensive wired last-mile telecom stage. The grid is very valuable, but it's also very expensive, and as storage and solar get really cheap, while grid costs stay stagnant, we may arrive at a future for which decentralized, disconnected mi…
I'm not convinced that this is a case of leapfrogging. Off grid solar+storage is great when you and everyone around you is using very little electricity. It lets you go from "nothing" to "lightbulb at night" very cheaply, which is a huge improvement. Once you're using tons of electricity, list a 1st world home does (refrigeration/ac/microwaves/electric ovens/electric stoves/washing machines/vehicles/...), storage wou…
These are small islands. More storage is almost certainly cheaper than inter island connections.
Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages
#7> Solar power is still fairly rare in Indonesia. While the country has targeted more solar as part of its climate goals, there has been limited progress due to regulations that don’t allow households to sell power back to the grid, ruling out a way of defraying the cost that has helped people afford solar in other parts of the world.
Most of the article is talking about homes that aren't even connected to the grid, so there's no grid to sell power back to in the first place. Sure, maybe there's also a law against it, but if the starting condition is "no electricity", it doesn't seem like the law is much of an impediment.
Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages
#8For years (decade? decades?) this has been the promise of distributed solar and storage, and been analogized to how developing countries leapfrogged to wireless telecom without the expensive wired last-mile telecom stage. The grid is very valuable, but it's also very expensive, and as storage and solar get really cheap, while grid costs stay stagnant, we may arrive at a future for which decentralized, disconnected mi…
I'm not convinced that this is a case of leapfrogging. Off grid solar+storage is great when you and everyone around you is using very little electricity. It lets you go from "nothing" to "lightbulb at night" very cheaply, which is a huge improvement. Once you're using tons of electricity, list a 1st world home does (refrigeration/ac/microwaves/electric ovens/electric stoves/washing machines/vehicles/...), storage wou…
Since there is a limit with what the solar system can provide the user/community will work with that. No need to say it can't accommodate a wasteful western way to use the energy.
Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages
#9> Solar power is still fairly rare in Indonesia. While the country has targeted more solar as part of its climate goals, there has been limited progress due to regulations that don’t allow households to sell power back to the grid, ruling out a way of defraying the cost that has helped people afford solar in other parts of the world. Most of the article is talking about homes that aren't even connected to the grid, s…
From TFA: 97% of Indonesians are on the power grid; those are the ones who'd ostensibly be selling back (not these microfinanced units in the remaining 3%).
Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not convinced that this is a case of leapfrogging. Off grid solar+storage is great when you and everyone around you is using very little electricity. It lets you go from "nothing" to "lightbulb at night" very cheaply, which is a huge improvement. Once you're using tons of electricity, list a 1st world home does (refrigeration/ac/microwaves/electric ovens/electric stoves/washing machines/vehicles/...), storage wou…
These are small islands. More storage is almost certainly cheaper than inter island connections.
All the pictures in the article are Sumba island, which has an area of 11k km^2 and roughly 800k people (slightly less population density than the state of California), I'm not sure that really counts as small.
Yes island interconnects seem reasonably unlikely. Similarly Hawaii has no interconnects between the main islands [0] despite being a first world locale. A different geography leading to a different grid structure the mainland US isn't "leapfrogging", it's just a different geography leading to a different grid structure.