Mathematics of electricity in Africa

[David]

I found this link in my in box this morning about solar power in Africa. It was a bit surprising to learn that solar is extremely big in Africa and growing rapidly. Its all small scale home owners and farmers, buying Chinese stuff from African companies.

https://climatedrift.substack.com/p/...ign=post_embed

There are 600 million people off the grid in sub Saharan Africa and that is not changing quickly. The numbers don't work

• Cost to connect one rural household to the grid: $266 to $2,000
• Average rural household electricity spending: ~$10-20/month
• Payback period: 13-200 months (if you can even collect payments)
• Collection rate in rural areas: complicated

But the math works for small home owners

• A company (Sun King, SunCulture) installs a solar system
• Owner pays ~$100 down
• Then $40-65/month over 24-30 months
• The system has a GSM chip that calls home
• No payment = remotely shut off
• Keep paying = keep power
• After 30 months, free power

They are replacing $3-5/week kerosene spending with a $0.21/day solar subscription (so with $1.5 per week half the price of kerosene) that’s cheaper AND gives better light, phone charging, radio, and no respiratory disease.

The business case for small farmers to use solar powered irrigation is even more compelling

Sorry for a largely cut and paste post, but I thought this was interesting and great for the people involved. Of course what happens in sub Saharan Africa does not directly affect me, but its still nice to see progress for them.

[LakeFever]

Hold up a second there Hoss. Mathematica don’t work in Africa everyone knows that because Math is inherently racist. Those are DEI numbers we can’t use sum based math or we discriminate. We don’t want to lose another month of ad revenue for misinformation posts

[David - WI]

Carbon credits.

[David]

Carbon credits were part of the linked story. Africans are not getting carbon credits for home solar installations, but farmers, through the solar companies, can multiply the saving by selling carbon credits.

[XstreamVking]

They have been living "off grid" for thousands of years. I think they will be ok without the solar panel crusaders.

[David]

Their lives must be much better with electricity. It’s not as if they lived off the grid by choice. Nor do I expect they care much about how they get their volts. Solar is their only option. No one is selling home diesel generators to people in sub Saharan Africa who live on $2 a day.

You think they should choose darkness?