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Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

reuters.com

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Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#241

Post by spwa4 »

triceratops wrote: post #76
spwa4 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which will make the problems of the rich disappear and the problems of the poor and the state ... worse. (because the costs of the state are paying off loans for expensive generation, costs which they recover from the poor)

The state can default on the loans too. It sucks and it will make future financing more difficult. But it remains an option. No such thing as risk-free lending.

... which would cut off imports in a non-self-sufficient state (Pakistan is a country that if it ever were isolated internationally, the people would just start dieing). For the poor the situation is simple: either they pay the loans or they lose everything they have and probably even die of hunger.

A lot of muslim and African states are in that boat. If the US, yes, the international monetary system is under US control, frankly because nobody else will pay for it. If the US ever decides not to cover Pakistan's debts starvation is exactly what will happen in Pakistan.

Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#242

Post by triceratops »

UltraSane wrote: post #239
triceratops wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume the lower end of that range - $800/kWh and take the example of Arizona. https://www.aps.com/en/Residential/Service-Plans/Compare-Ser... The difference between off-peak and on-peak rates there is about $0.21/kWh in the summer and $0.29/kWh in the winter, so assume an average delta of $0.25/kWh. Assuming no solar panels, if you charge the battery on the grid at off-peak rates and discharge it completely at…

3.5 cents per KWh is exceptionally cheap and does seem to give a reasonable payback period for cheap enough batteries.

No I goofed a bit too, by assuming 2kWh used every day but $800 in installation cost (which is for 1kWh). Fixing that error increases the payback to 8.76 years/kWh of installed battery. But only if you assume rates don't change for all of those ~9 years.

But rates will likely increase. So will the delta between off-peak and on-peak rates. I think the true payback period is between 5 and 8 years.

Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#243

Post by bofadeez »

kragen wrote: post #240
bofadeez wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not arguing that centralized or state-capitalist systems “never work” in the sense that nothing gets built, or that output can’t rise. Clearly roads, ports, power plants, and factories were constructed in many of the cases you listed. The narrower point I’m making is about economic rationality. Without market prices for capital goods generated through profit-and-loss entrepreneurship, there is no way to know whet…

They surely were not the best use of scarce resources. However, I don't know if you've ever tried to run a business in a poor country. It turns out that the decentralized economic systems they have are also not economically rational, systematically failing to provide functioning market mechanisms that support long-term investments such as highway systems, reliable electric grids, municipal water treatment, etc., even…

Sure, running a business in kleptocratic hellholes is a nightmare. Confiscation risks kill private investment, especially for big infrastructure that needs stable property rights and enforceable contracts to make sense.

But that's not a bug of decentralized markets; it's the poison of political interference and weak institutions, which state capitalism only doubles down on by swapping entrepreneurial discovery for bureaucratic fiat, still without solving the calculation problem or providing systematic feedback beyond "stuff got built."

Look at Hong Kong in your list: it boomed precisely because of its hands-off, free-market approach with top-tier economic freedom rankings, unlike more interventionist tigers that rode credit-fueled waves but crashed in '97 or stagnated like Japan post-bubble.

Atrocities are the dark side of concentrated power touted as enabling opportunities, jacking up variance with no way to gauge if human welfare gains beat the unseen costs of foregone innovations.

Without prices and profits guiding resources, we're left guessing expectations, but history shows freer systems deliver sustainable abundance when institutions let them, not coerced escapes that often loop back to poverty or worse.

Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#244

Post by calvinmorrison »

shelled wrote: post #162
calvinmorrison wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pakistan has the highest per capita slavery except for communist countries with forced labor regimes, in the world. Their country is built on the backs of slavery.

As someone from India — who has written this kind of comment against India and Pakistan in forums, with poor reception, and later realised it was rightly so — some more detail and nuance, possibly with some easily readable sources, would help a great deal - mostly for the people who want a picture of that because slavery is a very evocative term.

thats ok. india thast the highest population of slaves worldwide, not on a per capita basis.

Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#245

Post by idiotsecant »

kieranmaine wrote: post #26
idiotsecant wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do the massive upgrades to the distribution system required for this kind of setup come from? We simultaneously hate utilities and want them to redesign and pay for a distribution system that was not intended for bidirectional load flow. Our municipal distribution systems are barely adequate. Net metering produces essentially no revenue but imposes a huge load on that infra.

My understanding is there is less of a need for massive grid upgrades in this model due to the use of storage. Rather than having to be able to distribute peak loads from solar, requiring a larger connection, you can smooth out the supply and distribute an even amount throughout the day, using a smaller connection. The section "1.1.3 Bringing large savings on grid expansions" [1] has a good explanation. 1. https://em…

This is exactly wrong because transmission and distribution are different things. You can think of distribution as the 'last mile' infrastructure. It's not expensive in the way transmission is - individual services are relatively cheap. The reason it's expensive is that there are enormous amounts of it and municipal distribution systems can be wildly complex. Power flows in these systems are unidirectional. When you throw that assumption on its head you drastically change how these systems must be designed.

A major change like that would be astronomically expensive. The only reason it kinda works now is that very few people do grid connected generation after the meter. Once that becomes more widespread it's time for a huge investment, on the order of what the transmission system needs, but it all has to be paid for by local utilities, very few of which can get the capital together to do major projects like that.

Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#246

Post by pfdietz »

kragen wrote: post #234
pfdietz wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised at the 40¢ figure for utility scale. Are you sure that didn't include the mounting hardware? Utility-scale PV is typically with 1-axis trackers. Another possibility would be that utility scale solar optimizes to a much large disparity between DC rating and AC rating than does domestic rooftop PV.

I was surprised at it too, but remember that the US basically doesn't allow Chinese solar panels to be imported.

Wait, so those were not US residential cost figures you quoted? Because I don't see how they'd allow Chinese imports for only residential installation.

Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#247

Post by kragen »

pfdietz wrote: post #246
kragen wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was surprised at it too, but remember that the US basically doesn't allow Chinese solar panels to be imported.

Wait, so those were not US residential cost figures you quoted? Because I don't see how they'd allow Chinese imports for only residential installation.

Those were also US, yes. I don't know why they were so much cheaper. Possibilities include:

- Maybe the SEIA is wrong.

- Maybe utility-scale projects sign contracts to buy PV modules further in advance. The prices were falling rapidly.

- Maybe residential installers were buying low-cost panels with lower efficiency or with no warranty.

Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#248

Post by torginus »

fragmede wrote: post #179
torginus wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy to think that thanks to Starlink, EVs, renewables, a small-ish rural community could become almost independent.

Just missing water and sewage and garbage/recycling, but a rural community does gain some independence via those things you mentioned.

I used to have a wooden cabin that was kind of on the edge of the forest. It did get municipal electricity and running water (which wasn't drinkable, it came from a nearby creek).

For waste, you have a septic tank, you get bottled water from the store next village (and gas canisters for cooking).

For garbage, we needed to collect it and take it to a recycling point a couple km away every week or so.

It was a surprisingly manageable level of hassle, and this is how people used to live not so long ago outside of cities.

You could've gotten far more automated with things like solar, greywater recycling etc.

Going totally off grid is likely very hard, but reducing your dependence on civilization to a once a week trip is pretty manageable.

Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#249

Post by peppersghost93 »

UltraSane wrote: post #60
peppersghost93 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can be depending on your needs. Lithium iron phosphate batteries are pretty cheap for their capacity. If you build your own power station with them you'd be surprised how far your money goes.

It is much more expensive that just buying electricity from the grid at night.

It's worth the price if you live in an area where grid stability is not a given.

Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#250

Post by elzbardico »

kryogen1c wrote: post #62
londons_explore wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these problems become solved if you have realtime market pricing. Nobody would bother to install rooftop solar if daytime power was super cheap on every sunny day, yet expensive at night when their solar isn't working.

Wouldn't this model price out poor people? Doesn't that mean the most vulnerable people cant afford the services when they need them most, ie max hot/cold? Changing the utility to a market sort of defeats the point of trying to optimize the utility.

On the contrary right now poor people are subsidizing fat cats like me that were early enough to have net metering
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