By John Hanger
Solar shortly will be 59% of Botswana's total generation capacity! Solar does more to electrify Africa & end energy poverty than any technology. Oil & gas imports are unaffordable for poor countries. New coal & gas plants are unaffordable. Solar & batteries are the option!
Solar increases Botswana's TOTAL generation by 148%, since 2024. Botswana had 0.76 GW or 760 MW of TOTAL generation at end of 2024. Solar was 10 MW or 1.3% of that total. Botswana adds 1.1 GW of solar, with 271 MW operating & 820 MW under construction!
Botswana is not a key contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. But it is emblematic of all the developing countries in the sunbelt (its latitude is +-22 degrees south). These countries are installing solar hand over fist because it is cheap. Cheaper than oil and coal and gas. So cheap that total electrical capacity is doubling (or more) every year because of new solar installations. People who never had electricity before now have it. Factories that struggled to afford electricity or even to have electricity now have it.
And the costs of solar and batteries haven't yet stopped falling. This is an unstoppable revolution. And we enter the era of dirt-cheap electricity. Except where countries have turned their faces against it. In the US, and in Australia, where the right-wing parties are inexplicably promising to subsidise coal power stations. The stupid really burns, doesn't it?
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