alt Hacker NewsI don't know much about electrical grids, but I'm wondering if something like this concept could help South Africa with its endlessly struggling electrical grid problems. My city constantly has power outages and the majority of people cannot afford installing solar into their homes.
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Eskom is already trying to take people to court over "non-compliant" solar panel installations [1]. I wouldn't hold my breath. Like most things in ANC South Africa this is a political issue where Eskom wants to get their cut for providing a non-existent service - and then funnel that money back to their friends and family for their non-existent services.
[1] https://www.ecr.co.za/shows/stacey-jsbu/eskom-cracks-down-no...
South Africa's problems with the electrical system and structure are well documented but also complicated. Here's a good recent video covering it, there are many others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUnR8PBtVW8
From what I understand, South Africa's electrical problems have been long term political.
South Africa's problem is the ANC stopped Eskom building what it needed with foreseen growth when they came into power in the 90s. They wanted to introduce competition into the generation market.
They didn't introduce competition, as you might expect from a hyper-incompetent government, and just let the issue languish, and South Africa now just doesn't have enough power plants to serve its population when it takes one offline for scheduled maintenance.
But at least a lot more people got to buy Audis with the freed-up money sloshing around.
In cases where transmission lines are hitting capacity particularly on hot days, this is a place where batteries can help. Peak shaving is can’t help you with grids that are oversubscribed for more than a few hours a day but they can help load shift for part of the day. The batteries can still have value for emissions reductions if and when you finally get right of ways for more power distribution.
They tried that - especially companies like BMW - and they got no permits, because the state run power company wants money for providing nothing.
The problem is also that thieves steal the copper cables, even for micro-grids. You can not tech your way out of social/cultural problems.
Socialist cultural rot is real and the only way out is to eradicate cultures that encourage that mindset. All the ingredients are there- but the people are still set on telling themselves that robin hood story that destroys everything.
It is not necessary for the majority to install solar.
Pakistan had similar problems with rolling blackouts, and mass import of photovoltaic equipment and batteries from China has reduced the load on the grid so that outages no longer occur frequently. In fact the demand has shrunk so much that it jeopardizes financing of coal power companies.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43620309