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SA does have great solar potential, but there's really no point in investing trillions in solar production before panel efficiency improves. The cost per watt

SA does have great solar potential, but there's really no point in investing trillions in solar production before panel efficiency improves. The cost per watt decreases wildly every year, so if you invest half a billion in last-gen panels... Now, hoarding money and sponsoring solar efficiency research? Absolutely. But actually dropping the massive cap-ex on the solar farms was probably not a good move for SA itself (even if it was good for the world as a whole).

maliker 6y ago
If you look at the inverter/module price trends[1], you'll see we've pretty much reached the bottom of the cost curve. Continued price reduction is coming from balance-of-system and soft costs (e.g. planning). So SA is probably in a good position now to buy modules and inverters, focus on innovation in the non-module pieces and policies to reduce soft costs. [1]https://cleantechnica.com/files/2019/11/Installed-Solar-Price-Declines-Tracking-the-Sun-scaled.png https://cleantechnica.com/files/2019/11/Installed-Solar-Pric...