Cheap Solar Is Transforming Lives and Economies Across Africa 28
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: South Africans ... have found a remedy for power cuts that have plagued people in the developing world for years. Thanks to swiftly falling prices of Chinese made solar panels and batteries, they now draw their power from the sun. These aren't the tiny, old-school solar lanterns that once powered a lightbulb or TV in rural communities. Today, solar and battery systems are deployed across a variety of businesses -- auto factories and wineries, gold mines and shopping malls. And they are changing everyday life, trade and industry in Africa's biggest economy. This has happened at startling speed. Solar has risen from almost nothing in 2019 to roughly 10 percent of South Africa's electricity-generating capacity.
No longer do South Africans depend entirely on giant coal-burning plants that have defined how people worldwide got their electricity for more than a century. That's forcing the nation's already beleaguered electric utility to rethink its business as revenues evaporate. Joel Nana, a project manager with Sustainable Energy Africa, a Cape Town-based organization, called it "a bottom-up movement" to sidestep a generations-old problem. "The broken system is unreliable electricity, expensive electricity or no electricity at all," he said. "We've been living in this situation forever." What's happening in South Africa is repeating across the continent. Key to this shift: China's ambition to lead the world in clean energy. The report says that more than 7 gigawatts of solar capacity have been installed in South Africa over the past five years -- about 1/10 of the country's total installed capacity (55 GW). And most of this new solar capacity is privately owned and installed by households and businesses rather than utilities.
Across the continent, Chinese solar imports rose 50% in the first 10 months of 2025. Cheap Chinese solar is rapidly reshaping Africa's energy landscape from the bottom up but it's also shifting geopolitical influence, hollowing out local manufacturing opportunities, and deepening divides between those who can afford energy independence and those who can't. "The solar surge does little to address the most pressing social and economic problems of developing countries like South Africa, the need to generate new jobs for millions of young citizens," reports the NYT. "Installation labor is local, but the panels and batteries are almost all made in China."
Further reading: Why Solarpunk Is Already Happening In Africa
No longer do South Africans depend entirely on giant coal-burning plants that have defined how people worldwide got their electricity for more than a century. That's forcing the nation's already beleaguered electric utility to rethink its business as revenues evaporate. Joel Nana, a project manager with Sustainable Energy Africa, a Cape Town-based organization, called it "a bottom-up movement" to sidestep a generations-old problem. "The broken system is unreliable electricity, expensive electricity or no electricity at all," he said. "We've been living in this situation forever." What's happening in South Africa is repeating across the continent. Key to this shift: China's ambition to lead the world in clean energy. The report says that more than 7 gigawatts of solar capacity have been installed in South Africa over the past five years -- about 1/10 of the country's total installed capacity (55 GW). And most of this new solar capacity is privately owned and installed by households and businesses rather than utilities.
Across the continent, Chinese solar imports rose 50% in the first 10 months of 2025. Cheap Chinese solar is rapidly reshaping Africa's energy landscape from the bottom up but it's also shifting geopolitical influence, hollowing out local manufacturing opportunities, and deepening divides between those who can afford energy independence and those who can't. "The solar surge does little to address the most pressing social and economic problems of developing countries like South Africa, the need to generate new jobs for millions of young citizens," reports the NYT. "Installation labor is local, but the panels and batteries are almost all made in China."
Further reading: Why Solarpunk Is Already Happening In Africa
Oh boo hoo (Score:4, Informative)
Installation labor is local, but the panels and batteries are almost all made in China.
And Starlink is made by Elon Musk, and Chromebooks (and transparent translation) are produced by Google. Put them all together, and you have an educational and informational capability on par with developed nations. Give the curious access to that, and watch what happens in a few years.
Re: Oh boo hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
The main point for African countries is not catching up or narrowing a gap, but seeing real-world improvements in the lives of millions. Do you think some kid who's able to do their homework at night for the first time is going to give a shit that Belgium's economy has also improved over the last year?
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>> And Starlink is made by Elon Musk, and Chromebooks (and transparent translation) are produced by Google
If you think this is how education works in Africa's countries, go and build yourself an OLPC sucessor.
Hint: it does not work that way.
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Starlink is prohibited from operating in South Africa by the South African government, thus depriving millions of poor rural people of broadband access.
The reason for the ban is that Starlink is required to hand over 30% of the equity in its local business to a select group of locals, based on their race.
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A better computer (not a faster one, a freer one) would help a bit
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Not on the same cost basis as Chinese manufacturers.
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Why not? What is stopping them?
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Subsidies, scale, and access to raw materials/cheap energy to get the started (mostly coal). China has been building the infrastructure for mass manufacture of good for the last 40 years, while most of Africa has not. Not to speak of issues with worker discipline and China having effective slave labor.
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the = them, good = goods
feh
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Not solar panels they haven't. And exactly what is it that China is manufacturing in Africa now? It's be interesting to see what's being built there.
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that's not how industry works.
Especially semiconductors.
Those shithole countries have free power now... (Score:2, Troll)
Jealous?
Too much corruption (Score:2, Troll)
The African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa has caused massive corruption across the economy. As such it is a warning against 'socialism' - state owned monopolies are horrible, and such 'state ownership' is the policy of the ANC.
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The fantastic thing about the rise of cheap solar and storage is that it strips away the ability of corrupt and incompetent governments and power companies to cause so much harm. See also: Pakistan, where the deployments of behind-the-meter solar have been even larger as a percentage of grid capacity.
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The fantastic thing about the rise of cheap solar and storage is that it strips away the ability of corrupt and incompetent governments and power companies to cause so much harm.
It's easy for them to outlaw solar and battery installations, either directly or effectively, and then use those laws for selective enforcement and engage in asset forfeiture. So, no, not really.
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Everything is theoretically possible. But the question is what is actually happening in practice. And banning of solar happens in the US (and wind in the UK, for a while) — but not in African countries.
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See also: Pakistan, where the deployments of behind-the-meter solar have been even larger as a percentage of grid capacity.
To the point that the official energy production dropped 10% year over year recently (because people install their own, independent solar panels).
This was mentioned by author Bill McKibben in a podcast episode [youtube.com] of Why is this happening? [msnbc.com]
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The story of what’s happening in Pakistan is really incredible
NYT caveats entirely misunderstand this (Score:5, Interesting)
"The solar surge does little to address the most pressing social and economic problems of developing countries like South Africa, the need to generate new jobs for millions of young citizens" is just out and out bullshit. That's only looking at first-order effects, yet cheap energy is famously most important for its second-order economic benefits. If energy is cheap, everything else gets cheaper; if its price rises, so does the price of everything else. When prices get more affordable over time, productivity can improve.
As I've mentioend a couple of times in recent posts, there are massive and profound benefits for people in sub-Saharan Africa from the current rapid and remarkable deployment of cheap solar and battery installations. These include: explosive growth in two and three wheel transport, leading to oil demand destruction (fuel for two and three wheelers is a dominant fraction of current consumption in many African cities), rapid improvements in air quality and thus respiratory health, big cuts in balance-of-payments drains for national economies, stabilised household finances as daily unpredictable cash drains for fuel become stabilised amortised capex, massive cuts to risks and time spent by women and girls in particular eg for water collection, etc. No more kerosene heating at home means a rapid drop in respiratory conditions from indoor air pollution. Kids can study after dark, meaning better educational outcomes. Vaccine storage becomes much lower risk because small clinics have reliable power. Rural African communities can narrow the gap with urban. These all lead to substantial economic improvements for everyone.
Seems an odd complaint. (Score:2)
Last I checked; the overwhelming majority of jobs in some way related to electricity have nothing to do with manufacturing the equipment that produces and distributes the electricity; but with all the various