> Local grids are failing people in Africa. People are using the mobile money system to take out loans to buy a personal solar and battery system. That means saving the money spent on kerosene for indoor lighting. That means being able to work and study for more hours of the day. I hope this unlocks a self-reinforcing cycle of productivity.
This is something I've been thinking about lately.
The most successful model for nations that I know of that takes them from Low Income --> Middle income --> High income seems to be export-oriented industrialization. It worked for basically every major success story since WW2 besides microstates that have some strategic advantage (Singapore w/ location, various tax havens, etc.), or states that have a large amount of valuable natural resources that they manage well (Norway, Gulf States, Botswana, etc.).
I worry that this sort of development model is not viable with solar power, which is variable throughout the day and year. Factories need to be operating nearly 24/7, so even if you have the cheapest labor on the planet, you'd need quite a lot of solar panels, and quite a lot of batteries to run factories off them (Unless you have a large functional power grid already that can pick up the slack).
My admittedly unfounded suspicion is that the adoption of solar power in Africa is going to be harmful in the long run. It will divert focus from having an "industry capable" power grid, and I don't see much of a path to development without industrialization, especially given that much of Africa doesn't have the same education-focus as the East Asian economic miracles had in their cultural backgrounds.
Essentially; Short term gains from having access to power in places without consistent electricity generation. Long-term stagnation as cheap solar replaces power sources capable of powering industry, leaving no competitive advantage besides resource extraction. All perpetuating Africa's underdevelopment.
Edit: And automation makes this even worse, as the competitive advantage of extremely cheap labor willing to work in arduous and unsafe conditions gets weaker when you're competition with a billion humanoid robots, or whatever it is that Tesla and Boston Dynamics are doing with robots. I'm not convinced on the viability of that dream, but I think it's plausible, and could make development even harder for Africa.
I agree. If decentralized power is used as an excuse to never build a real grid, could increase the startup cost of any factory a lot making development harder.
But I don't think I'd go all the way to saying it's bad in the long run. The growth from decentralized energy is a windfall, and governments should spend it on building more infrastructure. If they don't build infrastructure, I lay the blame with the government not the solar panels.
As an aside, I am somewhat optimistic about the prospects of building off-grid factories particularly in regions close to the equator. CATL's recent battery price declines are promising too. That said, the point about making development harder still stands, and hard to push above 95% utilization with solar and batteries.
Automation worries me too. Part of me wonders if the developing world will simply build its way out of poverty without exports by making fertilizer, solar, batteries, motors, etc. domestically. If you wait long enough, that tech should diffuse to the rest of the world. Chips are hard though.
3.
> Local grids are failing people in Africa. People are using the mobile money system to take out loans to buy a personal solar and battery system. That means saving the money spent on kerosene for indoor lighting. That means being able to work and study for more hours of the day. I hope this unlocks a self-reinforcing cycle of productivity.
This is something I've been thinking about lately.
The most successful model for nations that I know of that takes them from Low Income --> Middle income --> High income seems to be export-oriented industrialization. It worked for basically every major success story since WW2 besides microstates that have some strategic advantage (Singapore w/ location, various tax havens, etc.), or states that have a large amount of valuable natural resources that they manage well (Norway, Gulf States, Botswana, etc.).
I worry that this sort of development model is not viable with solar power, which is variable throughout the day and year. Factories need to be operating nearly 24/7, so even if you have the cheapest labor on the planet, you'd need quite a lot of solar panels, and quite a lot of batteries to run factories off them (Unless you have a large functional power grid already that can pick up the slack).
My admittedly unfounded suspicion is that the adoption of solar power in Africa is going to be harmful in the long run. It will divert focus from having an "industry capable" power grid, and I don't see much of a path to development without industrialization, especially given that much of Africa doesn't have the same education-focus as the East Asian economic miracles had in their cultural backgrounds.
Essentially; Short term gains from having access to power in places without consistent electricity generation. Long-term stagnation as cheap solar replaces power sources capable of powering industry, leaving no competitive advantage besides resource extraction. All perpetuating Africa's underdevelopment.
Edit: And automation makes this even worse, as the competitive advantage of extremely cheap labor willing to work in arduous and unsafe conditions gets weaker when you're competition with a billion humanoid robots, or whatever it is that Tesla and Boston Dynamics are doing with robots. I'm not convinced on the viability of that dream, but I think it's plausible, and could make development even harder for Africa.
I agree. If decentralized power is used as an excuse to never build a real grid, could increase the startup cost of any factory a lot making development harder.
But I don't think I'd go all the way to saying it's bad in the long run. The growth from decentralized energy is a windfall, and governments should spend it on building more infrastructure. If they don't build infrastructure, I lay the blame with the government not the solar panels.
As an aside, I am somewhat optimistic about the prospects of building off-grid factories particularly in regions close to the equator. CATL's recent battery price declines are promising too. That said, the point about making development harder still stands, and hard to push above 95% utilization with solar and batteries.
Automation worries me too. Part of me wonders if the developing world will simply build its way out of poverty without exports by making fertilizer, solar, batteries, motors, etc. domestically. If you wait long enough, that tech should diffuse to the rest of the world. Chips are hard though.