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Solarpunk is happening in Africa

climatedrift.substack.com

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Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#461

Post by mycall »

MrsPeaches wrote: post #402
Tade0 wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same report says that 90% of those kits are repairable and the most common failure point is the battery and also that the vast majority of users hold on to their devices in hopes of repairing them in the future, as there exists some kind of repair service, it just isn't up to scale.

The repair service is really expensive for subtle reasons. First of all there is the repair itself, but there isn’t any collection service so you need to travel (often a full day) to get to a repair centre. Then travel back. Not open on the weekend so you have to do it during the week, meaning you are also loosing 2 days of income. Then you have to go and get it once it’s done. Total cost of repair for people using t…

How often is bartering used as payment for repairs?

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#462

Post by jncfhnb »

jl6 wrote: post #449
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…

My takeaway from observing “tech in developing world” projects is that the key gap is usually maintenance . That is, continuous small investment to prevent things from breaking in the first place. To be fair, that’s not exactly a solved problem in developed countries either! Sometimes development projects just throw solutions at rural communities then move onto their next project, leaving no legacy of training or con…

On some level economies of scale and improving technology don’t warrant maintenance

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#463

Post by [deleted] »

jncfhnb wrote: post #462
jl6 wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My takeaway from observing “tech in developing world” projects is that the key gap is usually maintenance . That is, continuous small investment to prevent things from breaking in the first place. To be fair, that’s not exactly a solved problem in developed countries either! Sometimes development projects just throw solutions at rural communities then move onto their next project, leaving no legacy of training or con…

On some level economies of scale and improving technology don’t warrant maintenance

[deleted]

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#464

Post by v7n »

chrneu wrote: post #432
TechDebtDevin wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point of this article is to get people to say this. Considering half the numbers in this article are fabricated, it makes me wonder if this comment is also a part of the scam.

v7n's comment smells like a bot or they used AI to translate.

I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm not a native speaker but neither do I use any of those tools to write my comments here.

The community I have the privilege to be involved with in Kenya is facing many challenges when it comes to propagating access to solar energy, and one relatively small thing that can be done would be to service the lead-acid batteries most commonly used there: the environment is quite hostile to them as I understand it, and lead-acid is "the affordable chemistry" of choice. The problem is that there is a lack of knowledge and toxic waste (sulphuric acid, lead) handling capability. Otherwise topping up old batteries as a service is absolutely an achievable goal, much needed, and there is money to be made.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#465

Post by energy123 »

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…

> sell people cheap crap at a 10x mark up that pretty much immediately breaks once the warranty period is over.

Two massive exaggerations inside one sentence to drive home a rhetorical point.

Provision of retail solar is a highly competitive market in developing countries and the profit margins are small.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#466

Post by jabl »

MrsPeaches wrote: post #437
chrneu wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol yeah I was gonna say that they fix everything. They can't just Amazon prime new shit. It's weird how OP just assumes they're inept at repairs when that's just not true at all.

I didn’t say, nor do I assume, people are inept at repairs. I said that the communities that are being targeted with off-grid solar don’t currently have the skills or infrastructure required to maintain these systems. It’s something I’ve seen with my own eyes and that I’ve read in academic literature as a widespread problem. Cross and Murray 2018 [1] being one the first papers to talk about it, I saw it myself for th…

Well, what is the alternative then? Probably the same problem when their diesel generator conks out. Small things you can do yourself, but rapidly you run into a situation where you need spare parts, or at least a competently run machine shop.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#467

Post by myrmidon »

jjcob wrote: post #456
amluto wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Res…

Battery power for an oven like this is not necessarily cost-prohibitive; if you want cost effectiveness and long lifetime, LiFePo cells can be had for ~$60/kwh, which would be under Absolutely agree on resistive heating for cost effectiveness: Some cheap cells, resistive heating and minimal power electronics would probably be the way to go for the African market.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#468

Post by rswail »

baq wrote: post #392
TeMPOraL wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Dead Internet and the triumph of quantity over quality loom always_has_been.jpg The Internet has drowned to death in garbage back when they coined the term "content marketing". That was long before transformer models were a thing. People have this weird impression that LLMs created a deluge of slop and reduced overall quality of most text on-line. I disagree - the quality arguably improved , since SOTA LLMs wri…

I’m old enough to remember people complaining about the exact same thing except they called it eternal September.

Back in my day, we lamented the loss of bang paths for email... and you had to pay Robert Elz to bring in a news group because munnari connected Australia to the world...

Yeah, I'm old.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#469

Post by kaon_2 »

razakel wrote: post #460
kaon_2 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I oversaw that thank you :)

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#470

Post by [deleted] »

jl6 wrote: post #449
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…

My takeaway from observing “tech in developing world” projects is that the key gap is usually maintenance . That is, continuous small investment to prevent things from breaking in the first place. To be fair, that’s not exactly a solved problem in developed countries either! Sometimes development projects just throw solutions at rural communities then move onto their next project, leaving no legacy of training or con…

[deleted]
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