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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

#11

Post by gpm »

seb1204 wrote: post #8
gpm wrote: post #4

Earlier 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…

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.

If you mean to say "as long as they can't afford luxuries they'll do without them" that is no doubt true.

However to suggest that once they can afford luxuries that are most cheaply acquired by going beyond a single-household electricity setup, that they will continue to do without them over some attachment to not having a grid, that claim seems almost certainly completely incorrect.

It also needs to be said that electricity isn't just used for "wasteful things", it's used for making things more efficient, so that people can do more. The article talks about this in the context of lighting, but it's no less true in the context of washing machines, and dishwashers, and microwaves, and air-conditioning [1], and mechanized transportation (electric bikes/cars/...), and ...

[1] http://corporatemechanical.com/how-air-conditioning-impacts-...

Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages

#12

Post by hedora »

seb1204 wrote: post #8
gpm wrote: post #4

Earlier 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…

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.

Wasteful is relative. Our house produces 250-300% of our usage most days, but 5-50% of our usage some weeks.

Heating and cooling (and the computers that manage the batteries, which draw about 200W, including internet!) is hard to timeshift, but everything else is easy to move to sunny days.

Anyway, on those sunny days, electricity is literally free. I wish I could just dump it into a magic box that pulled charcoal out of the atmosphere.

Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages

#13

Post by quechimba »

Many families in the nearby village run generators at night. They can't afford solar panels so they pay 5 soles for gasoline just to have lights on when it gets dark. If they could afford solar they could have lights on every night for a one time cost. Most family don't have the luxury of running generators though.

This project sounds really cool. I wonder if this can be done in the Peruvian Amazon. I'm sure several families could share the same solar panel and battery if they only use it for lighting and charging phones... Funding would be difficult, no one has money here.

Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages

#14

Post by photochemsyn »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #5

Indonesia 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 renewa…

The unstated statistic in this article is that Indonesia's reliance on coal has grown from 20% of national energy production to 40% of energy production over the 2005-2020 period, which accounts for most of that 85% to 97% growth factor.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/indonesia-clings-coa...

The slow growth of renewables particularly in remote locations is certainly a good thing, but the actual nation-wide picture is just business-as-usual:

> "The government has pledged to increase the renewable share to 23% by 2025. Still, data from energy think-tank IEEFA shows that about 16 GW of new coal power capacity is expected to come online between 2021 and 2030."

Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages

#15

Post by hedora »

gpm wrote: post #4
epistasis wrote: post #2

For 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…

I’m not sure having a grid is the end state.

The US is abandoning the grid in Puerto Rico and California (though the politicians won’t admit it, and the pork is still flowing).

If solar and batteries continue to get cheaper, the cost of the grid hookup will eventually stop making economic sense for new construction.

Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages

#16

Post by ronnier »

What’s going to happen when the haves can afford to buy solar and go off grid leaving the have-nots left on a grid increasingly void of people who can pay for it? I suspect off grid users will be taxed heavily and/or it’ll be illegal to not pump back into the grid. Will probably be illegal to go off grid in the future

Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages

#17

Post by gabereiser »

Water turbines can help too. If you combine solar, water, and wind with a decent storage system you could do all sorts of things. Automated irrigation of agriculture. Self-running aquaponics. A induction electric oven and cooktops for a restaurant, let alone the lighting and A/C.

Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages

#18

Post by rd07 »

> 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.

I little correction here, Indonesia do have a regulation that allow households to sell power back to the grid[1].

[1] https://money.kompas.com/read/2022/01/22/171500226/aturan-ba...

Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages

#19

Post by rektide »

ronnier wrote: post #16

What’s going to happen when the haves can afford to buy solar and go off grid leaving the have-nots left on a grid increasingly void of people who can pay for it? I suspect off grid users will be taxed heavily and/or it’ll be illegal to not pump back into the grid. Will probably be illegal to go off grid in the future

This was kind of the rural electrification challenge the US faced. Opting to wire almost everyone up was a costly endeavor at the time. But one we take for granted now.

Given where the world is now, given how much easier decentralized solar & renewable are than the massified power generation of yore, I'm more conflicted today than I am comfortable with. The idea of sprawling microgrids, communities giving local access maybe cheap may grow up, but likely undrr diverse & inconsistent & biased policies... Likely as an Uberified enshittifying take on what a public utility ought be.

Re: Off-grid solar brings light, time and income to remotest villages

#20

Post by rektide »

quechimba wrote: post #13

Many families in the nearby village run generators at night. They can't afford solar panels so they pay 5 soles for gasoline just to have lights on when it gets dark. If they could afford solar they could have lights on every night for a one time cost. Most family don't have the luxury of running generators though. This project sounds really cool. I wonder if this can be done in the Peruvian Amazon. I'm sure several…

I can get quite a lot of night time light out of a $65 100Whr lipo and a $50 inverter. That sounds much better to me than a generator.
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