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

Post by mmooss » Sat, Mar 15, 2025, 9:41 PM UTC

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…

Post by lurk2 » Sat, Mar 15, 2025, 9:44 PM UTC

alephnerd wrote: post #22

ForTheKidz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) se asia is a much more densely populated region, making infrastructure cheaper per capita to produce (some things scale better, most do not) and 2) se asia has capital flowing through it at a far higher volume, mostly because of manufacturing. I can't speak to why there historically hasn't been as much manufacturing in Africa—I'm guessing it's just cheaper to colocate with others for lower costs across the board?…

> se asia is a much more densely populated region, making infrastructure cheaper per capita to produce Most of South East Asia has developmental indicators comparable to most of Sub Saharan Africa. Sub Saharan Africa has plenty of basket cases (DRC, CAR, Mozambique), but it also has plenty of countries on the same general trajectory as South East Asian countries (Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, Senegal). "Africa" a…

Post by hgomersall » Sat, Mar 15, 2025, 10:06 PM UTC

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #63

marcosdumay wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes, that's exactly why you would over-provision. So the upside of having occasional surplus is that in other times such as winter with less solar, you are more likely to still have enough capacity.

Post by tpm » Sat, Mar 15, 2025, 10:16 PM UTC

bsder wrote: post #58

breakyerself wrote: post #14

It's been obvious for a long time this was going to be the development path for Africa. Just as they leapfrogged land line telephones for cellular. Africa was never going to build out massive coal and natural gas based electrical grids with transmission lines substations and utility poles bringing electricity to every home. The capital isn't there and the cost of renewables keeps falling.

> The capital isn't there and the cost of renewables keeps falling. It doesn't help that Africa is huge and the population density of most of it is damn near zero. Grids of any form make very little sense given those constraints.

Post by alephnerd » Sat, Mar 15, 2025, 10:22 PM UTC

decimalenough wrote: post #53

alephnerd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of arfica (sic) has been too unstable to safely invest in. Everytime things start looking up there is another revolution and all investment is lost You can't view Africa with such broad strokes. A West African country with British administrative norms like Nigeria is going to have entirely different outcomes compared to a former Portuguese colony impacted by the Colonial Wars like Mozambique. Reality is, plent…

Are you really characterizing Nigeria's notoriously kleptocratic bureaucratic system as "relatively competent", while self-styled Singapore of Africa Rwanda is a "basket case"? Most observers would reverse those labels.