Solarpunk is happening in Africa • Hacker News Board

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#321

Post by epistasis » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 4:43 AM UTC

Steven_Vellon wrote: post #246

pfdietz wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was around 14 hours of battery storage. Seems reasonable. Realize that replacing all ICE road vehicles in the US with 70 kWh BEVs would require storage equal to ~40 hours of our average grid usage. The future is going to need large numbers of batteries, which is why China has been all in on this.

14 hours of battery (~40 TWh for China) with the hydrogen storage or without? Because the calculator was reporting ~78,000 GWh battery storage with China's weather selected, and 2030 technology assumptions. I changed the spatial capacity factor from 1 to 2 and the battery storage requirement dropped down to 68 TWh, but still well above 40 TWH. Regardless, 14 hours of China's electricity demand is a whopping 40,600 GW…

Battery production capacity grows by 10x every five years. It was four years ago when I first heard that, and we are exactly on track still. In 2031 we will be at 20-30 TWh/year production capacity.

There are few things that grow this fast when it comes to manufactured things, atoms are far harder to arrange and scale than bits. But it's happening at a tremendous scale. Natural gas turbine production capacity is tapped out with long order queues, and so is battery production well into 2026, but only battery production capacity is expanding at breakneck speed.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#322

Post by pfdietz » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 4:49 AM UTC

discordance wrote: post #252

pfdietz wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I go to https://model.energy/ and ask it to solve for providing steady output in China from 100% renewable energy (wind/solar/battery/hydrogen) at minimum cost using 2030 cost assumptions and 2011 weather data, the solar curtailment is just 7.3% (and most of the energy is coming from solar, not wind). If I remove hydrogen and solve again, solar curtailment increases to 16.7%. "200% overcapacity" is completely bo…

Try that again with 99% renewable and it becomes much more reasonable with regards to over overcapacity. 1% non-renewable would be a very good outcome.

One can enable "dispatchable 1" which is simple cycle gas turbines, and limit the total CO2 emission so that's at most 1% of the generation. Doing that, and with no hydrogen, solar curtailment is reduced by more than half, to 8.1%.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#323

Post by esseph » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 4:58 AM UTC

hattmall wrote: post #211

epolanski wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point this is a cliche. There's tons of countries with much cheaper labor. The reasons we build in china are not related to cheap labor, this hasn't been the case from quite some time.

Cheap labor is still a major factor, but infrastructure is definitely another.

It's not remotely cheap. A long time ago the cheap labor moved from places like China to places like Mexico, which is one of the reasons so many automotive manufacturing plants there - just a rail ride across the border.

Now that hasn't been the case for more than a decade. The cheap labor is in SE Asia and South America.

What China has is decades of process improvement, factories, infrastructure, experience, and a willingness to work. They haven't been the cheapest, by far, for a long while.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#324

Post by kilpikaarna » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 5:01 AM UTC

lll-o-lll wrote: post #312

worik wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This I recal, the 1980s when Japanese manufacturing was dogy as. By 2000 it was the best The same thing is happening in China They are very good at everything they do, and getting better. Good.

Japanese manufacturing was dodgy in the 80’s ? I don’t think so. “What do you mean doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan” “Unbelievable”

That's the entire point of the joke, yeah. Japanese manufacturing was dodgy in the 50s-60s but great by the 80s.

Korean manufacturing might've been considered dodgy in the 80s but great by 2000. Taiwan (ROC) went through this also (70s vs 90s, ish?). And now China.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#325

Post by epistasis » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 5:03 AM UTC

pinkmuffinere wrote: post #280

I understand why this is happening in Africa first — lack of infrastructure makes the solution much more competitive. But as prices fall, it seems that this might be cost competitive in other areas as well. Selfishly, I’d love to see this in the US! Any big issues that would prevent adoption in the US?

It's mostly politics stopping this in the US. But even with current political roadblocks to solar, it's an absolutely massive part of new builds for grid scale electricity generation:

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65964

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#326

Post by thaumasiotes » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 5:07 AM UTC

pantalaimon wrote: post #232

nandomrumber wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any way that is more fair for the end user. Why should a solar generator, who has virtually zero inputs, demand the same rate as a gas or coal generator who’s costs are dominated by inputs? Where’s the promised savings to the end user? That’s right, there aren’t any. And people bang on about solar being cheaper. No it isn’t. Solar electricity is the same price as gas peaker-plant electricity. Everywhere I’ve looked,…

If you can make a great profit from solar, you are incentivised to build more of it for an even greater profit. Soon there is so much solar that you don't need the expensive gas most of the time.

> Soon there is so much solar that you don't need the expensive gas most of the time.

Unless it's night. Or, possibly, unless you have enough battery capacity to store the entire nighttime supply during the day.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#327

Post by aitchnyu » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 5:08 AM UTC

htrp wrote: post #158

>Solar Home System Evolution: >2008: $5,000 (affordable only for wealthy urban Kenyans) >2015: $800 (middle-class farmers) >2025: $120-$1,200 (true smallholders) How does US solar cost so much?

Solar panels represent approximately 12% of the total average cost for solar projects in the United States. The remaining costs are primarily composed of soft costs, which include permitting, financing, installation labor, customer acquisition, and other non-hardware expenses.

https://www.ny-engineers.com/blog/breaking-down-the-price-of...

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#328

Post by stingrae » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 5:10 AM UTC

"This worked great if you were electrifying America in the 1930s, when labor was cheap, materials were subsidized, and the government could strong-arm right-of-way access."

It was good in the moment. The issue is maintaining it without the same cheap labor and materials. PG&E in California is a perfect example. There is no way for them to maintain the grid which is aging and causing fires. We are going to have to switch to a slightly similar regional power generation/storage model.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#329

Post by mattclarkdotnet » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 5:12 AM UTC

rmunn wrote: post #265

vkou wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in the US, the thirteenth amendment seems to think that a little slavery is cool. As I understand it, much of the rest of the world has similar views, but I'm sure this varies a bit from country to country. It's just that in the 21st century, we prefer to use some less-upsetting euphemism to refer to the practice domestically.

> Here in the US, the thirteenth amendment seems to think that a little slavery is cool. For anyone not familiar with the US Constitution, the 13th Amendment forbids slavery and involuntary servitude "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." Without that "except as a punishment for [a] crime" clause, being sentenced to N hours of community service would be forbidden by the C…

Most other countries seem to be able to have community service orders without labelling it “servitude”. Do you have a reference for why community service is defined as servitude in the US?

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#330

Post by blackoil » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 5:29 AM UTC

worik wrote: post #218

epolanski wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point this is a cliche. There's tons of countries with much cheaper labor. The reasons we build in china are not related to cheap labor, this hasn't been the case from quite some time.

This I recal, the 1980s when Japanese manufacturing was dogy as. By 2000 it was the best The same thing is happening in China They are very good at everything they do, and getting better. Good.

You are right except off by couple of decades. So 60s to 80s.