Africa's solar revolution is vast and speedy

dan_grec

Make no mistake, this is happening all over the globe with enormous success. Australians now get free power for three hours a day. India, Pakistan and many other developing countries are deploying solar and batteries insanely fast because it’s so cheap direct from China. China themselves add more solar capacity in a few months than the entire US grid. There really is only one country with prohibitively expensive solar and batteries thanks to tariffs. Fingers crossed that will change soon.

nntwozz

Meanwhile in Sweden we have skyrocketing prices each winter since the war started, even though we rank 3rd in the world for nuclear power per capita.

bawolff

Things change quickly when the economics make sense.

msy

There are parallels here to the way much of Africa fixed land-lines phones and went straight to mobile. Which has also been powered by Chinese hardware.

shimman

People need to realize this is going to make a massive difference for developing countries to not have to rely on expensive alternatives like LNG. There is a tremendous cost when you have to build very labor + resource intensive infrastructure versus just buying solar panels + batteries. Will follow a similar path of preferring cellular networks to fiber lines. An interesting podcast series that goes over just this from earlier this year: https://thepolycrisis.org/electric-world-order-ep-1-the-quie...

sheepscreek

The current geopolitical climate is becoming a blessing for Africa, and much of the developing world. With China's ties with the US all but severed, it is incentivized to redirect most of its resources into building Africa. That in turn will reinvigorate the Chinese economy. If Africa has abundance of electricity, they can become consumers of Chinese EVs, and more.

yanhangyhy

History doesn't always have to be linear. Africa can leverage modern technology to leapfrog many stages—much like how many elderly people in China never used a computer in their lives, yet became hooked on short videos powered by smartphones and AI. For Africa, solar energy and TikTok are profound transformations. Then there are cheap Chinese goods. The driving force behind all these changes is primarily China.

hunglee2

Decentralised power generation is the future for Africa, many of whose countries cannot rely on central government to efficiently operate a national grid. I am thinking primarily of South Africa, where many businesses and (rich enough) home owners have back up diesel generators to fill in in moments of load shedding. Solar of course is the most decentralised form of power of all. Positive stuff for Africa. This is where China overcapacity really does lead to more equitable power (literally) distribution, so congrats to them also

blackoil

Was this scale of solar revolution inevitable or did China willed (subsidized) it?

happyPersonR

With EVs providing transportation, lots of countries not just in Africa, are seeing rapid deployment of solar and batteries. It’s amazing :) Great for everyone and will change everything if allowed to continue

dead_hn_theory

Actual title: China's solar revolution is vast and speedy

_3u10

Solar is crazy cheap from China it’s a 4 year payback at $0.045/kwh.

NDizzle

What makes anyone think solar will survive when wells won’t?

aorth

We moved to a new house earlier this year in Kenya and it has solar. Very convenient, as there are electricity outages every few weeks for various reasons (usually trees falling on power lines), not to mention the cost savings. We are basically on the equator so we have sun for 12 hours in theory.

bijowo1676

Thank you, China for affordable green revolution. This would never ever could have happened in Africa, had the West held exclusive control over green tech

logicallee

Africa is enormous. Some of the arid regions don't have much infrastructure or population. One of my projects would benefit from owning some "sovereign" land, do you think it would be possible to buy approximately a square mile (2.56 square kilometers), 258 hectares/640 acres, about five times the size of the vatican, from one of the countries, like in the middle of the dessert with nothing there, and allow it to be used like an enormous embassy/sovereign territory? Which country would be best for that? Should be sunny, arid, have some cheap dessert land with pretty much nothing there. I'd just order a starlink and some solar panels and have a sovereign data center there. The project is registered with the United Nations, but some of the requirements for full sovereignty are internationally recognized land. Do you think it's possible? (Like an embassy.)

Alien1Being

China truly has been a blessing for Africa.