What will people do at night?

davyAdewoyin 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think I can answer that, though I'm not a Pakistani but as a Nigerian in a developing country, you might also have a petrol generator for night times. But for the majority of people just having your phone and power bank charged for the night is pretty ok, a plus if you can keep a handful of bulbs on also.

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kragen 28 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Wait until the morning to run the washing machine.

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peppersghost93 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

overprovision for their needs during the day and utilize battery power at night.

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UltraSane 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Solar panels are cheap but batteries are very expensive.

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jillesvangurp an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Batteries are dirt cheap already and getting cheaper all the time. Pakistan would be buying them at the Chinese prices without a lot of tariffs or nonsense that might be misleading you into believing otherwise.

Think a bandwidth of 50-80$ per kwh cost levels for the manufacturer with a margin on top in a market where there's over production and prices are still trending down and margins are probably under quite a bit of pressure. That's the widely publicized cost levels for Chinese manufacturers that dominate the world supply currently. Some of the sodium ion batteries that are coming to market now are already at the lower end of that price bandwidth and could go to 10-20$/kwh over the next 5-10 years; maybe faster.

At those prices, anyone can afford plenty of battery to survive the sun not shining for days/weeks. Which in places like Pakistan would be redundant. It's far south and you can count the number of days that you shouldn't be wearing sunglasses outside per year on the fingers of one hand. Even when it's cloudy, there's plenty of light filtering through in that part of the world..

Prices you might be seeing in the US tell you more about the local politics there than the economics of batteries. The US has it self to blame for bad economics like that. Places like Pakistan aren't going to slow down because the US can't figure out all this new stuff. For them this is economic growth unlocked by vastly more energy than they've ever had access to. All they'll ever need basically.

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triceratops 30 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Batteries are cheap in developing world prices, cheap in rich country prices. They continue to become cheaper every year.

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peppersghost93 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They can be depending on your needs. Lithium iron phosphate batteries are pretty cheap for their capacity. If you build your own power station with them you'd be surprised how far your money goes.

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UltraSane 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It is much more expensive that just buying electricity from the grid at night.

	▲	scheeseman486 8 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		In Australia, if you have the space for rooftop solar, it's far cheaper in the long run to buy solar+battery. We did the math for our household and even if grid prices are stable (which they aren't, they're fast increasing) we're still going to make money back on the investment in less than 4 years. Granted this includes a government rebate for the battery, but overall the prices have plummeted. Any government that isn't pushing for renewables and energy storage at this point is actively working against it's citizens.

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newsclues 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Shift usage to daytime and rely on battery storage.

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davyAdewoyin 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

For my experience a lot of installations really doesn't have much battery capacity cause batteries are pretty expensive at least here in Nigeria, but a lot of people are really happy with the system as long as they get electricity even if it's only during the day.

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UltraSane 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Batteries are very expensive.

	▲	newsclues 39 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Couple used car batteries or usb batteries are cheap. Enough to keep the lights on, a fan or charging a phone. Not to run an AC or dishwasher but enough for the basics.