Cellphone tower operators across Africa are increasingly turning to solar power to reduce reliance on costly diesel fuel and expand connectivity in off-grid areas.
That’s really a western prospective where you are used to a reliable power grid. If you’re living in the global south, blackouts are more common (depending on your country, of course). And if you can’t rely on your power system to provide you power at all times, you have already adapted. And that also means that you can use solar without much hassle
Guess my view is little unreasonable. I mean building something new and expect it to work is demanding awful lot.
But stopping with the snark. Africa has it problems with countries weaponizing cellphone and internet connections and that would not be solved even if every tower had its own nuclear reactor powering them.
You say it would take a volcano eruption to cloud the sky. Intense Sahara dust events can lower the PV output and the soil landing on the panels can make them useless. Cleaning these panels is laborius and uses water that can be hard to get in some areas. These are happening more frequently as climate change is doing its thing. There has been studies showing solar energy drop up to 50% as far as Greece because of the sand in atmosphere.
I think using solar for powering those towers is a great. I just dont see logic behind building a system that can with a bad luck just stop working, when you could instead build some failsafe option.
That’s really a western prospective where you are used to a reliable power grid. If you’re living in the global south, blackouts are more common (depending on your country, of course). And if you can’t rely on your power system to provide you power at all times, you have already adapted. And that also means that you can use solar without much hassle
Guess my view is little unreasonable. I mean building something new and expect it to work is demanding awful lot.
But stopping with the snark. Africa has it problems with countries weaponizing cellphone and internet connections and that would not be solved even if every tower had its own nuclear reactor powering them.
You say it would take a volcano eruption to cloud the sky. Intense Sahara dust events can lower the PV output and the soil landing on the panels can make them useless. Cleaning these panels is laborius and uses water that can be hard to get in some areas. These are happening more frequently as climate change is doing its thing. There has been studies showing solar energy drop up to 50% as far as Greece because of the sand in atmosphere.
I think using solar for powering those towers is a great. I just dont see logic behind building a system that can with a bad luck just stop working, when you could instead build some failsafe option.