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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

#41

Post by neltnerb »

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…

Maybe it makes sense to truly integrate generation and storage with your neighbor. Between two towns separated by forty miles of roads?

I don't think you get to the same end result. When production is in the same location as consumption, the interconnects can be way less expensive and in a disaster the grid has more redundancy. Plus it bootstraps way better, locally people get access to the initial benefits before the entire grid has been planned out.

And as others suggest, those interconnects might go mostly unused, storage and generation is pretty impressive nowadays.

But even besides the timing advantages, you just end up in a situation where the power grid is closer to the internet in architecture where sources and consumers of electricity are all over. We have the technology to handle that.

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

#42

Post by aaron695 »

rippercushions wrote: post #21
photochemsyn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

This is particularly sad since Indonesia is volcanically very active and has tons of potential for geothermal power. Many of its islands are also quite dry, which couples with the equatorial location makes them great for year-round solar.

[dead]

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

#43

Post by greenmartian »

JamisonM wrote: post #31
rd07 wrote: post #18

> 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…

My Bahasa Indonesia is not strong enough to read that article but it seems to be referencing this: https://www.ahp.id/brighter-days-ahead-as-indonesias-ministr... Reading the details is seems like it is still pretty true that there are regulations that don't allow households to sell power back to the grind. There are not regulations forbidding the practice but even with these reforms the practice seems regulated in a…

There are some interesting points there.

1. (For those on the state-owned retailer/distributor) Although you can't be credited for any generation over 100% (up from 65%), the extra credit does carry over in a 6-monthly cycle (up from 3). Which means, while you can't make a profit out of your generation, it does cater for seasonal variations to keep your bill at zero. Not the best, but not terrible.

2. (For private retailers) As you said, there's nothing requiring them to do anything.

Also of interest is that, even with deregulation efforts in the early 2000s, the state still holds near-monopoly level of distribution/retail - especially in the residential market. The small number of private operators are either remote, or focused on industrial complexes.

On the generation side, there's plenty of major private players, but most of them simply sell to the state (again, because of the near-monopoly).

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

#44

Post by zo1 »

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 is already happening in South Africa. The grid pretty much can't provide and is now turned off for people for up to 40% of the day.

So over the last decade, a huge amount of solar installations have made people a few small steps away from going off grid. But separate to that, they're paying less and less (0 in some cases), so "the grid" is stuck keeping: subsidized customers, customers who use almost 0 and customers that use lots illegally and don't pay.

The power utility's answer: tax users that don't use any electricity. And not just a connection type flat fee. They want to punish people that use very little, ironically after begging people to "please stop using so much electricity".

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

#45

Post by [deleted] »

neltnerb wrote: post #41
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…

Maybe it makes sense to truly integrate generation and storage with your neighbor. Between two towns separated by forty miles of roads? I don't think you get to the same end result. When production is in the same location as consumption, the interconnects can be way less expensive and in a disaster the grid has more redundancy. Plus it bootstraps way better, locally people get access to the initial benefits before th…

[deleted]

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

#46

Post by otherme123 »

zo1 wrote: post #44
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 is already happening in South Africa. The grid pretty much can't provide and is now turned off for people for up to 40% of the day. So over the last decade, a huge amount of solar installations have made people a few small steps away from going off grid. But separate to that, they're paying less and less (0 in some cases), so "the grid" is stuck keeping: subsidized customers, customers who use almost 0 and custo…

From what I've heard (friends who worked there for a month), electricity in South Africa is demential. For example there's a timetable to know when you will have, probably, four hours of electricity tomorrow and for the next week. You cannot make extrapolations from that.

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

#47

Post by rgmerk »

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

For most people in urban and suburban areas, a grid connection is going to be sufficiently financially attractive that the rational thing to do is keep it.

For one thing, maintaining sufficient storage at home to fully recharge a car overnight would be prohibitively expensive, but maintaining a grid connection to allow you to do so is cheap.

The process of ripping up the grid is more likely to occur (and in fact is already starting to happen) in remote areas. Traditionally urban consumers have cross-subsidised some remote electricity connections but in many cases it’s cheaper to buy those consumers off-grid systems or independent microgrids than maintain grid infrastructure connecting those locations.

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

#48

Post by cfn »

rippercushions wrote: post #21
photochemsyn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

This is particularly sad since Indonesia is volcanically very active and has tons of potential for geothermal power. Many of its islands are also quite dry, which couples with the equatorial location makes them great for year-round solar.

I live in an archipelago of volcanic islands and asked the same from an enginner working in the power company. According to him, geothermal is only viable above a certain amount of power which restricts it to the largest islands. For the smaller islands (up to 15 thousand inhabitants) a combination of solar, wind and diesel is used instead.

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

#49

Post by zo1 »

otherme123 wrote: post #46
zo1 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is already happening in South Africa. The grid pretty much can't provide and is now turned off for people for up to 40% of the day. So over the last decade, a huge amount of solar installations have made people a few small steps away from going off grid. But separate to that, they're paying less and less (0 in some cases), so "the grid" is stuck keeping: subsidized customers, customers who use almost 0 and custo…

From what I've heard (friends who worked there for a month), electricity in South Africa is demential. For example there's a timetable to know when you will have, probably, four hours of electricity tomorrow and for the next week. You cannot make extrapolations from that.

You are 100% correct. They have planned "blackouts" according to a schedule so that it's fair and everyone gets a turn. However the schedule is based on how heavily the strain on the network is, which they regularly fiddle with. There are even apps now that notify people of blackouts planned for their area and help them make some sense of the chaos.

Luckily (or not) they have huge strain on the network atm so they pretty much said "nope, perpetually stage 6" so at least people know what to expect for the coming days. It still catches so many people off guard and they're forced to make plans for dinner as an example.

And yet they're refuse to allow solar users to push back to the grid easily. It's madness and the government is making itself obsolete, which will medium term affect the poor the most.

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

#50

Post by pyrale »

photochemsyn wrote: post #14
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 p…

It's not stated because it's not related to offgrid power, which is the article's topic.

It's a good reminder that not everyone has access to very high-quality, high volumes of electricity. For the people lacking either quality or quantity, solar makes a big difference.

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