Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

For climate and livelihoods, Africa bets big on solar mini-grids

knowablemagazine.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 99 posts

Re: For climate and livelihoods, Africa bets big on solar mini-grids

#41

Post by heavymetalpoizn »

mmooss wrote: post #33
twoodfin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you differentiate Africa from East Asia in those regards?

Let's look at the successful economies of East Asia: Japan was a first world country, an economic success before WWII, and then had the US occupation after the war to rebuild it economically and politically as a hedge against future Japanese threats and against Russia and China. South Korea never suffered Western colonialism (?) but did suffer under Japan. After that and the Korean War, iirc it was one of the poorest…

[dead]

Re: For climate and livelihoods, Africa bets big on solar mini-grids

#42

Post by dehrmann »

Etheryte wrote: post #38
dehrmann wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Selling your surplus ev power to grid is a huge waste, charging your neighbours car is a better use. Electricity is fungible (ignoring transmission losses), so what's the difference?

I think transmission losses are exactly the point? Locally, the losses are practically zero, the further you need to push it, the more significant various losses become. If you could line up someone's production to someone else nearby who needs to consume, as a whole the system would incur considerably less losses, no?

US grid transmission losses are estimated to be 5%. You'd come out ahead pretty quickly if your neighbors can't use your surplus.

Re: For climate and livelihoods, Africa bets big on solar mini-grids

#44

Post by marcosdumay »

Etheryte wrote: post #38
dehrmann wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Selling your surplus ev power to grid is a huge waste, charging your neighbours car is a better use. Electricity is fungible (ignoring transmission losses), so what's the difference?

I think transmission losses are exactly the point? Locally, the losses are practically zero, the further you need to push it, the more significant various losses become. If you could line up someone's production to someone else nearby who needs to consume, as a whole the system would incur considerably less losses, no?

> I think transmission losses are exactly the point?

That can't be, your panel is charging up your neighbor's car in exactly the same way independently of you being connected to outside of your neighborhood.

Re: For climate and livelihoods, Africa bets big on solar mini-grids

#45

Post by marcosdumay »

bpfrh wrote: post #29
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you'll just end up with over supply during sunshine/wind You will only need enough storage to cover 12-24 hours to reduce that a lot: Much of the surplus power can be put into vehicles when they're resting at home overnight, or for evening and next morning peak. For the rest, well, so what? Temporary "oversupply" on days when there's lots of sun and no vehicle to charge up is not the worst problem to have - it won'…

The problem is not necessarily day/night but summer with solar+and possible wind and winter with less solar and possible no wind. So you need to store energy for more than a few hours or generate it from something else. You then have the choice to use batteries(costly for megwatts as of now), things like hydrostorage, fossil fuels(gas/coal/oil) or hydrogen generated from renewable sources. If you need big energy stor…

> The problem is not necessarily day/night but summer with solar+and possible wind and winter with less solar and possible no wind.

So they have to buy some 30% more panels.

Re: For climate and livelihoods, Africa bets big on solar mini-grids

#46

Post by alephnerd »

mmooss wrote: post #32
alephnerd wrote: post #17

Small pet peeve - saying "Africa" is too broad a statement for a continent with 54 countries, and does a disservice to the actual government institutions working on development. They should explicitly call out Nigeria instead of treating it as "Africa". Nigeria is unique in how they actually have a formal industrial strategy for mini-grids [0] thanks to World Bank support [1] It's a uniquely Nigerian program and Nige…

That was my first thought. Let's say you are an editor: You can be accurate and write 'Nigeria' in the headline, but you realize that most people have no idea where or what Nigeria is - that's a bad thing, but true. If you write 'Africa', then many more people will learn about Nigeria. I don't have a good answer. Maybe they should squeeze both into the headline: 'For African climate and livelihoods, Nigeria bets big…

> Maybe they should squeeze both into the headline: 'For African climate and livelihoods, Nigeria bets big ...'

Yep! That's what I feel is much more constructive as a title, because it both gives credit to the originator of a success AND makes it potentially generalizable.

Btw, the proposed title you mentioned is the norm for reporting on the minigrid project in business news.

Re: For climate and livelihoods, Africa bets big on solar mini-grids

#47

Post by alephnerd »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #36
mempko wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong, the capital IS there, Africa is rich, it's just the capitsl is leaving for US, Europe, and Asia, instead of staying in Africa because of colonial history.

Why does africans send their capital to US, Europe and Asia?

Stop saying "Africans".

Each African country has a different context, and it does a disservice to laggards and over performers to club everyone as "African".

There are unique administrative hurdles and innovations that African countries have to either spark industries or smother them.

Humans are the same irrespective of our country of origin - the main difference is how public and private institutions manage humans.

Re: For climate and livelihoods, Africa bets big on solar mini-grids

#49

Post by matthewdgreen »

mmooss wrote: post #33
twoodfin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you differentiate Africa from East Asia in those regards?

Let's look at the successful economies of East Asia: Japan was a first world country, an economic success before WWII, and then had the US occupation after the war to rebuild it economically and politically as a hedge against future Japanese threats and against Russia and China. South Korea never suffered Western colonialism (?) but did suffer under Japan. After that and the Korean War, iirc it was one of the poorest…

I would assume that Africa will in fact be the global center of population in a few decades? Natural resources plus population is usually a winning formula for long-term growth.

Re: For climate and livelihoods, Africa bets big on solar mini-grids

#50

Post by alephnerd »

frereubu wrote: post #23
alephnerd wrote: post #17

Small pet peeve - saying "Africa" is too broad a statement for a continent with 54 countries, and does a disservice to the actual government institutions working on development. They should explicitly call out Nigeria instead of treating it as "Africa". Nigeria is unique in how they actually have a formal industrial strategy for mini-grids [0] thanks to World Bank support [1] It's a uniquely Nigerian program and Nige…

This gets my goat as well, particularly given how vast Africa is (the Mercator projection does it no favours in that regard) and the diversity of cultures.

Amen to all of that. It feels like all discourse about Africa is either super negative ("heart of darkness") or super paternalistic ("white/outsider [asian and middle eastern countries use the same discourse] savior complex").

It's similar to the discourse I'd see about Asia as a kid 20-30 years ago, and ignores a lot of the tangible on the ground innovations happening.

Post reply on HN