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

Solarpunk is happening in Africa

climatedrift.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–460 of 616 posts

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#451

Post by myself248 »

nluken wrote: post #98
marstall wrote: post #58

people saying this is AI-generated: why? It seems voicey, pacey, individualistic ... and contains new-to-the-world info. And it's good. None of these being qualities I associate with AI writing.

The giveaway is almost always an over-dependence on "Not 'x' but 'y'" structure. Even when the author changes the wording so that the phrase doesn't read exactly like that, they tend to leave the structure intact, and the bots really like to lead with the inverse of what the author wants to say to create contrast. A human author might have used this technique once to really emphasize a strong point, but today's LLMs…

As a human who's written like that for decades, this witch-hunt makes it really hard to participate online anymore. This was a standard expository device taught in school, some of us latched onto it, and now it's impossible to argue that we're human because someone's conviction that we're AI is just an opinion and there is no evidence that will convince them, nor do they deserve the effort it would take even if it were possible.

What's the path forward?

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#452

Post by MrsPeaches »

epolanski wrote: post #440
MrsPeaches wrote: post #372

This revolution also has a dark side: People are paying off these devices and then once they have paid them off, they break and people in these areas don’t have the skills or resources to fix them. This has led to over 250 million of the units lying around broken in peoples homes, leading to solar being one of the fastest growing e-waste streams in the world. It’s hardly solar punk to sell people cheap crap at a 10x…

The article you link bundles together 5/10/15/20/25 years technology in one huge basket. What about the most recent (last 5/10 years)? Also, aren't almost all failures battery, rather than panel, related?

Yeah not much has changed, it’s simple technology that was developed in 2005. Main innovations of the PAYGO model in recent times was the ability to use the payment data you collected to offer other types of loans. One of the previous biggest companies in the space now sells mobile phones using PAYGO.

Technically battery chemistry has obviously moved on but we are talking a device capacity similar to a medium power bank. How much innovation have you noticed in power banks recently?

Panels are big problem from a e-waste perspective as they very difficult to repair.

Batteries failures are repairable. Usually battery packs will be 2+ LFP 18650s or 32700s. If one cell goes bad the the whole pack goes but the others may be fine. Just need to test and match cells and you can make new packs.

I can’t remember exact recovery rate for cells, I think it is something like 40-60%.

Dealing with these batteries at end of life is a challenge, but that’s a global problem.

Still a lot of legacy Sealed Lead Acid batteries around but these are very recyclable.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#453

Post by potato3732842 »

jjcob wrote: post #413
kaon_2 wrote: post #405

I worked in this industry as a software developer. Companies like SunCulture (who used to be a customer of ours) started maintaining all their customers on spreadsheets. But with high volume low-value sales, you need to have good software to manage this. We were a player. I once had to do a mobile money integration with a Zimbabwean bank. A dozen skype calls led to nothing. Then I visited the country, bought a local…

> So you are looking at powering DC only appliances! Is there anything you actually need AC for? The big advantage of AC is that you can easily transform it for long range transmission. If you don't need that, AC is not really necessary, is it? I guess the bigger issue is the limited power -- you probably can't use a small scale solar installation for cooking or washing, not because it's DC, but because it just wont…

Ignoring the cost of the battery how much does a cordless drill that'll break your wrist cost? A non-trivial amount more than the corded one that's for sure. You're gonna see comparable cost difference in just about every "final appliance" that actually turns the jiggling electrons into results (whether those results are work or heat).

Alternating current is substantially easier to step up/down in voltage, much nicer to anything that modulated current flow and has a lot of convenient aspects for motors. Like for like the DC solution costs just a little bit more every step of the way.

Even if you're not doing long distance transmission the cost of all those things that are worse about DC are going to be bore across the entirety of your economy that uses AC. DC makes sense here because the supply chain is so dysfunctional that making the "better" solution work would actually cost more than the "12v doodads from china" style solution. Eventually as electrification continues the choice of DC will become a drag though.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#454

Post by myself248 »

kazinator wrote: post #134

> After 30 months = you own it, free power forever Except that chip that can remotely shut it off is still in it, waiting for a ransom attacker.

I was wondering about that. Is there some sort of removal process when the lease is up? If there were, folks would just do it early. Maybe there's enough enforcement/followup to discourage that while there's still outstanding debt, but perhaps it's a thing later.

It's a good point. This purchase model with IoT-enabled PAYG devices means there's a built-in vulnerability in the entire infrastructure. And unlike with a centralized utility where hypothetically some action-movie hero could rip out the one central device that shut things down, here there's millions of them everywhere.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#455

Post by mschuster91 »

jjcob wrote: post #413
kaon_2 wrote: post #405

I worked in this industry as a software developer. Companies like SunCulture (who used to be a customer of ours) started maintaining all their customers on spreadsheets. But with high volume low-value sales, you need to have good software to manage this. We were a player. I once had to do a mobile money integration with a Zimbabwean bank. A dozen skype calls led to nothing. Then I visited the country, bought a local…

> So you are looking at powering DC only appliances! Is there anything you actually need AC for? The big advantage of AC is that you can easily transform it for long range transmission. If you don't need that, AC is not really necessary, is it? I guess the bigger issue is the limited power -- you probably can't use a small scale solar installation for cooking or washing, not because it's DC, but because it just wont…

> I guess the bigger issue is the limited power -- you probably can't use a small scale solar installation for cooking or washing, not because it's DC, but because it just wont offer 1000W power.

Your average lead-acid starter battery can easily do that - 1 kW is less than 100 amps at 12V, less than 50A if you wire two in series. 200 Ah means about four hours worth of runtime.

The problem is switching off higher DC voltages and currents. AC is easy, it traverses through 0V 100 (or 120 in the US) times a second. But DC? The arc is just going on. That's why most electrical equipment, from switches over automated breakers to fuses, has distinct ratings for AC and DC, with DC ratings sometimes being half the AC rating.

Additionally, larger DC networks tend to have issues with weird current flows and electrochemical corrosion.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#456

Post by jjcob »

amluto wrote: post #419
jjcob wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you are looking at powering DC only appliances! Is there anything you actually need AC for? The big advantage of AC is that you can easily transform it for long range transmission. If you don't need that, AC is not really necessary, is it? I guess the bigger issue is the limited power -- you probably can't use a small scale solar installation for cooking or washing, not because it's DC, but because it just wont…

Battery powered induction stoves exist, although they are not cheap enough yet. They are, however, truly excellent products. The one from Impulse Labs is not a case of “wow, I can get decent performance without the monster electric hookup it used to require” — it’s “wow, this seems to be the best stove of any sort on the market by a considerable margin, and it’s nifty that it happens to run off an integral battery, t…

I looked up that Impulse Labs induction hob. Holy Shit, 10kW peak on a single burner is ridiculous!

I already managed to ruin a pan with just 3.7kW (heated it while empty), and I tought that was a lot.

However, I think the cost is probably mostly the battery. Our induction hob (max power per burner 3.7kW / 7.2kW total) costs only 10% of the battery powered stove.

Also, at the low cost, induction is a non-starter. Resistive heating elements are dirt cheap, and the efficiency is not much less than induction. Induction is just way nicer :)

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#457

Post by manmal »

defrost wrote: post #428
manmal wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s just media hype. You need orders of magnitude more of these plants to prevent blackouts entirely.

Err, no, it's an actual system we built here to service an actual town to soak excess energy from midday solar and buffer an actual real town from blackouts. The battery banks in Adelaide an elsewhere are real - you can kick them. You can price these against gas peaker turbine plants, and then compare the robustness of mini distributed storage nodes against larger single point of failure fossil fuel gas plants. I und…

Yes, for one town that’s a solution, but not one for the whole of a nation.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#458

Post by rswail »

MrsPeaches wrote: post #372

This revolution also has a dark side: People are paying off these devices and then once they have paid them off, they break and people in these areas don’t have the skills or resources to fix them. This has led to over 250 million of the units lying around broken in peoples homes, leading to solar being one of the fastest growing e-waste streams in the world. It’s hardly solar punk to sell people cheap crap at a 10x…

As you develop the distribution network, you also establish the recovery network.

Make it more advantageous for someone to continue to pay maintenance, on the basis of modular upgrades over time, versus owning outright.

Essentially the "grid" becomes the physical distribution/repair/upgrade network.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#459

Post by manmal »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #431
manmal wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why should a gas plant get more for its electricity when it's indistinguishable from solar electricity? I already wrote it: levels of service. A gas plant powers up in minutes. A coal plant in hours. A nuclear reactor in years. Solar and wind isn’t controllable at all.

But why would anyone else being able to deliver at the same time get anything less? I agree there's actually an issue here, ideally the price should be set by the next seller which just didn't get to sell.

The cheaper suppliers actually bid with their prices, and why wouldn’t those prices be fair then? The EU then goes and gives them more than they offered. Make it make sense. Google „merit order“.

It‘s still a gamble for suppliers btw. The prices change every 15 minutes, and every cheap supplier is at the whim of more expensive suppliers.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#460

Post by razakel »

kaon_2 wrote: post #439
chrneu wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the main benefit of small solar like this is to get combustion out of the home, specifically kerosene or dung lamps/stoves. A lot of folks have respiratory issues because they cook indoors.

Yes and no. You are right that indoor cooking (or outdoor on wood) is indeed one of the biggest causes of death worldwide. It dwarfs deaths by malaria. And where people don't die, it causes respiratory issues. I don't know the math but it is similar to smoking X cigarettes a day. - sidenote - You always learn that in centuries past, people didn't grow old. I never knew why but my current suspicion is that air polluti…

>I don't know the math but it is similar to smoking X cigarettes a day.

The article says two packs a day.

Post reply on HN