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Solarpunk is happening in Africa

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Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#471

Post by subscribed »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #170
manmal wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Austria, grid costs are now on par with the actual electricity cost. Each are ca €0.1 per kWh now, plus again that in taxes. Once the EU finally gets rid of the ridiculous pricing model where spot prices are dictated by the most expensive energy source (usually, gas), we might have a situation where grid costs exceed the cost of energy itself. Oh and what do they do with that money? Hoard it for upcoming grid…

>Once EU finally gets rid of the ridiculous pricing model where spot prices are dictated by the most expensive energy source (usually, gas), we might have a situation where grid costs exceed the cost of energy itself. Why is it ridiculous? From a pure mathematical economics point of view it's genius I think. It means energy producers can just set their price at production price, knowing they will get the best deal th…

From a profit-driven energy company it surely makes sense. From the customer perspective not so much:

- https://www.businesselectricityprices.org.uk/media/n35dlcza/...

- https://www.endfuelpoverty.org.uk/energy-giants-see-457-bill...

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#472

Post by leoedin »

safety1st wrote: post #356
titanomachy wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And earlier they say “$120 upfront might as well be a million when you’re making $2/day”. The whole article reads like it was vomited up by an LLM trained exclusively on LinkedIn posts. The math errors are consistent with that.

Yeah way too many tell-tale ChatGPT rhetorical devices in this article, which is a shame because the topic and premise are fascinating, but those turned me off from finishing it. AI slop hits 700+ upvotes on Hacker News. The Dead Internet and the triumph of quantity over quality loom. A sign of things to come.

It was a hard read, but actually a fairly interesting article. It's a shame the author chose to format it how they did.

The key takeaways - that solar is super cheap, that technology has unlocked offering hire purchase to incredibly poor remote communities, and that westerners looking to buy carbon credits are basically subsidising that - are pretty interesting. There was a lot of fluff around those points though.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#473

Post by eldaisfish »

latentsea wrote: post #298
eldaisfish wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

comments like this really show that many people with strong opinions do not understand how the electricity grid, electricity markets or electricity economics work. Electricity is priced at the edge entirely because demand must match supply at all times. You either meet all electric demand or someone will go without power. This is why marginal pricing exists and this is why the most expensive generator is always the l…

> Electricity is priced at the edge entirely because demand must match supply at all times. You either meet all electric demand or someone will go without power. There's also more to it than just that. Supply-demand imbalance affects the frequency on the grid. Too high or too low frequency damages the turbines in the base load power plants, and they will shut down to avoid damage if the frequency goes too far out of…

This has almost nothing to do with how electricity is priced.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#474

Post by myrmidon »

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…

> Making heat from electricity is hard!

Why? All you need is resistive wires, and minimal, dirt cheap electronics for regulation and shutdown/safety.

You can find this in literally any $20 kettle or toaster, no need to supply Africans with induction cooktops for thousands of dollars...

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#475

Post by jabl »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #141
AuthAuth wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think China deserves that hat tip. Their "commitment" was done years after all the major nations had committed to emissions reduction and seems to have only been done so they could sell the solution. They've made little attempt to reduce emissions and instead scaled their industrial base to capitalize on the demand from nations working to reduce their carbon footprint. The only thing they've done to greenwash…

This isn't factually accurate at all, and I would encourage some research so your statements can be more accurate. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/china-energy-transi... https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/wind-and-solar-gener... https://electrek.co/2025/09/02/h1-2025-china-installs-more-s... > Global solar installations are breaking records again in 2025. In H1 2025, the world added 380 gigawatts (GW) o…

Ember recently released a report (well, slide deck?) about the coming 'electrotech' age: https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/the-electrotech-rev...

We're at the point where things are changing fast. Yes, largely driven by the ginormous solar and battery production coming from China. The rest of the world better get their ducks in order if they want to compete.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#476

Post by foobarian »

coffeebeqn wrote: post #346
foobarian wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel very optimistic about battery storage for this reason. I would love nothing more than be able to run on battery for a week or so so I can give a middle finger to the utility and just rip out the grid connection. No more solar inverter or power limit permits needed.

You probably still want an inverter to get AC for your household. I’m also still waiting for the house size batteries to come down in price before pulling the trigger apart from a small 200W setup for fun

Wording might have been ambiguous - yes to inverter, no to requesting permission to attach it to the grid (for good reasons, backfeeding power during outages, avoiding overload and fire etc etc.)

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#477

Post by rswail »

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.

Japan was making tin toys in the 60s, by the 80s, they were one of the largest car manufacturing nations and were buying out US factories.

They boomed through the 80s/90s, but then lost their edge as China moved itself up the car manufacturing hierarchy, particularly in EVs.

Same with competing with South Korea, but Japan are coasting a bit.

China is at the start of that curve.

They'll end up diversifying into the rest of the world, but the 21st century will belong to China.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#478

Post by myrmidon »

chithanh wrote: post #365
w10-1 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thanks to all the entrepreneurs and engineers over the past decades Hat tip also to China's ideological commitment to independence from external oil supplies, as nicely coupled to reducing pollution and greenwashing their image. It's their citizens who sacrifice to make solar power cheap enough.

> It's their citizens who sacrifice to make solar power cheap enough. No. Manufacturing labor cost in China is not cheap. In fact since 2012 or so, it is more expensive than in most of Asia. Companies who want cheap labor look elsewhere. https://www.economist.com/business/2023/02/20/global-firms-a... (Archive link: https://archive.fo/tdhXJ ) China is also the only major economy where wages have increased at the same…

Median wage in urban China is about $20k/year.

That is objectively dirt-cheap compared to basically all of the west.

Yes, wages might be even cheaper in neighboring countries, but those lag behind in infrastructure, education, political stability, availability of capital and network effects from existing industry (and are thus not a viable alternative to China yet for lots of things).

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#479

Post by DanielHB »

dhoe wrote: post #415
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 someone who's spent the last 3 years in Africa, if there's one thing I learnt here is that if it can be fixed, they'll find a way to fix it.

Brazilian person here, when I moved to Europe I was baffled I couldn't find shops that fixed electronics. Like I wanted to get my Android phone charging port replaced, I literally couldn't find a shop in my city willing to do the repair.

I eventually went back to Brazil and had it fixed there and replaced the battery. Freaking phone lasted 8 years on my very clumsly hands, still works even. The fix cost me ~30 usd plus the battery cost.

Re: Solarpunk is happening in Africa

#480

Post by veunes »

The idea that Africa is skipping the grid in the same way it skipped landlines is compelling, but this goes even deeper: it’s infrastructure as a product, not a government service. And it’s being financed by the end user and the global North’s carbon tab. Wild.
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