African Initiatives in Clean Energy Advancement

As we venture into a time where an ecotopia is no longer an idea, but a necessity, we cannot help but to be led by the spirit of Hope such as Tim. We cannot listen to the economist that predict "financial ruin for nations that switched to clean energy." We know that "solar power allows individuals to generate their own electricity and so removes demand from the market." The power is in common people coming together and making this thing work. There is no real way for the solar power to work on a large scale, it must be done by communities coming together and identifying their needs. If we wait for the government to assist, it would ultimately be too late to save much of nature that we see going into ruins today. What happens when we use the last drop of oil? Does the earth need this and how will it be replaced? If we do not seek these questions we will continue to do things blindly. Many great initiatives have been mentioned throughout the course. I believe that more are continuing to grow. When we look on a world scale, other nations are running to solar technology and understand the benefit and need to adopt its path.

            The time for using coal, natural gas, and other unrenewable energy sources is quickly coming to an end in today’s time. Many would say it is because we are running out of these fuels, which is true. I would say it is because the money is starting to point in the direction of solar technology. History shows that the big businesses could care less about the carbon emissions, fracking, burning of unrenewable fossil fuels, and let along what it does to us as a people. If we are to fix our environment, we must create initiatives. However, studies have shown that the bigger issue is not running out of the fuels, but what will happen to our climate by the time we have used all of these fuels. We have an overabundance of carbon in our solar system right now. There have been many innovations over the past years to help people not rely on the old grid and start moving toward cleaner energy technology. One of the leading nations in this is Africa. Many places in Africa were off the grid beforehand. With the prices of solar panels dropping it has led major initiatives in Africa allowing millions of its people to receive power where they once didn’t have it. I think it is important to note the power we have as a community to do the same things for impoverished areas in our cities and communities. I believe the biggest factor in making this transition is how we treat each other. We have plenty of people with resources that can lead some of those same initiatives here in America. The question is will they? Will We?

            One of the best initiatives I saw based in Africa is Azuri. On their website they give you a detailed description of what their system is. It states, “Azuri’s entry-level PayGo solar home system provides 8 hours of clean lighting each day and the opportunity to charge mobile phones at home. After paying a small one-time installation fee for their Azuri system, the user then uses an integrated mobile money service to top-up their unit. Importantly, this top-up is priced to cost less than their current weekly spend on kerosene and phone charging, so customers start making savings right away. A customer purchases credit through a mobile money service either once a week or once a month, and tops up their unit from a T-Code received via text message. This keeps the Azuri system fully functional and in-credit, preventing the unit from shutting off. Over the course of typically 18 months, the purchase of top-ups allows the system to be paid off and the customer can choose to either unlock their Azuri system forever or upgrade to a larger model.”http://www.azuri-technologies.com/what-we-do#how-it-works

            This means that people who can’t even afford the system are getting them in their homes anyway. They set them up and pay on it weekly or monthly. Imagine if we had available in America, solar homes that we can buy off credit rather than regular homes. Imagine if the standard for living and building was that of energy efficiency. We use credit for many things so why not shift our credit system towards something that is beneficial.

When we look at civilization and who we would expect to lead initiatives in solar improvement, you would think of nations such as America or Europe. However, we will see that some of the most ambitions innovators are coming out of Africa. As Garth noted in his article in Quartz, “We’re putting together a product that’s got the latest LED lights, it’s got lithium iron phosphate batteries which are similar to the batteries you get in Tesla supercars, we’ve got adaptive smart metering inside the product, and we’ve got artificial intelligence in the product,” he told Quartz. It is important to note this because you see a system of value. It is not just about making money but putting the latest most efficient technology out that we have. This allows for more proficiency in what we do. If you look at what telsa is doing, you see top of the line innovation. The batteries that they are mass producing are the first of its kind and give us the hope of being able to store solar energy. The fact that these pay as you go solar systems have batteries similar to Telsa show a high level of innovation within Africa’s energy programs. He then goes on to say “And these are in $50 solar home systems that are sitting in rural Africa. And I compare that to the room I’m sitting in right now [in England], where light is controlled by two bits of wire and a mechanical switch, and has been for 150 years.”http://qz.com/604232/the-worlds-most-cutting-edge-renewable-tech-is-powering-rural-africa/

This company is a partner with the above mentioned company who gives people solar panels to light home and etc on credit. The fact the third world places are getting this shows how radical solar power is. It creates a situation where everybody can have access to power. The sun is not a capitalist and lights the entire sky. With these technologies we have the ability to harness this power with direct or indirect sunlight. Just look at what we have outside of the active solar grid. We can almost entirely run a home off passive solar methods. Taking into account the orientation of the sun, wind rose, degree days in your area, you can build your home to naturally heat, cool, and ventilate itself. When we take into account these designs, we see that we have the ability to use cheap material and still get full solar capabilities. One of the biggest factors to it is our need to cut back. We must be willing to let go of many of the materialistic ways we have picked up. As Tom Flannery would put it we must realize our power as an individual and champion one of the many causes on the battle field or start our own. We must be in this spirit of hope to create the atmosphere that resembles it. 

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