4 ms·

A proposal to build a sub-Saharan Africa electrical grid across 12 countries

37 points by wglb 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
boeingUH60 3y ago
Really thrilled to see my country (Nigeria) proposing a sub-Saharan electrical grid…when the mofos in charge can’t even supply stable electricity in their country yet. This project will not succeed due to corruption and incompetence…you can trust Africans on that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- thehappypm 3y ago
  Wait. Those aren’t as mutually exclusive as you make it out to be. Bigger grids are more resilient than smaller ones, not the other way around. California and Texas have fairly isolated grids for roughly the same amount of people. Compared to the Midwest or the Northeast or Southeast, larger population areas, their grids fare far worse despite having on average better weather.
  - junofan 3y ago
    Nigeria has 200 million people, which is an order of magnitude larger than Texas. I don’t think serving a slightly bigger population is going to help their situation.
    - pie420 3y ago
      More people, but significantly less users, and less intensive users. People in nigeria largely aren't charging electric cars, running laundry dryers, or have much industry that requires as much electricity as the industry in california and texas. In fact, I would guess that the electrical power consumption in Nigeria would be far less than either state, and the overall number of people wouldn't be as big of an impact. Any major infrastructure investments now would pay huge dividends to the people in the future. You don't plant trees because you need shade today, you plant trees because you need shade in 20 years, and that's what I think the goal is here, to prepare africa for a major technological and per capita consumption leap in the next two decades. If they start building today, with many partner countries, it'll prepare the region to succeed better.
      - piperswe 3y ago
        Some rudimentary Google research on my end shows the Texas power grid serving about 10x as much power as the Nigeria power grid.
  - applied_heat 3y ago
    California is part of the WECC, it is not isolated at all.
    - thehappypm 3y ago
      The Southwest region is certainly geographically isolated; however California is doing its best to fight that with connections such as with the PNW, but those are long distance and California is still susceptible to power outages from a few weak links .
      - applied_heat 3y ago
        “California currently has 18,170MW (18.2 GW) of interconnections to neighboring states in the Western Interconnection, equivalent to approximately one-third of its annual peak electricity demand.“ In my view, 33% of annual peak is not weakly interconnected. Granted that number is from 2003. I work on hydro electric plant control systems not transmission planning so I can’t say what industry insiders would call weakly interconnected, but on the systems I have worked on one or two ties is weakly interconnected and dozens is not. https://www.electricpowergroup.com/Downloads/pFinalCAElecGenTransNeeds11-17T3.pdf https://www.electricpowergroup.com/Downloads/pFinalCAElecGen...
  - martin8412 3y ago
    Bigger grids might be more resilient, but that doesn't really help all that much when dealing with sabotage like in South Africa. When you have people deliberately destroying infrastructure to get contracts for fixing it, it becomes difficult.
- squarefoot 3y ago
  China is involved; it's a "do ut des" scenario in which China gets resources and Africa gets low cost energy. That's the reason I'm sure it will work, and it's one of the chances the West royally missed there. Now it's all up to China, Russia and possibly Turkey.
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    > "do ut des" For those interested, this is Latin for "I give, so that you may give [presumably in the future]". More on topic, for the project to succeed the Chinese would need to be left in charge of operating the grid, which is likely to run into political difficulties. Building it isn't enough.
    - squarefoot 3y ago
      > For those interested, this is Latin for "I give, so that you may give [presumably in the future]". Yes, apologies for not specifying it. About the topic, I guess that the chances to obtain cheap energy, which would be vital for further industrial development in the areas involved, could convince local leaders to not mess with the projects, also with the perspective of cashing in public political support when time comes.
      - thaumasiotes 3y ago
        > I guess that the chances to obtain cheap energy, which would be vital for further industrial development in the areas involved, could convince local leaders to not mess with the projects, also with the perspective of cashing in public political support when time comes. That approach hasn't worked out for other African infrastructure, including already existing infrastructure. And one of the biggest ways to build political support is to promise to confiscate what non-Africans have. "Expropriation without compensation" is a major political slogan in South Africa. Things are similar elsewhere.
azurezyq 3y ago
China is leading UHV transmission line construction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity_transmission_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity...), because most power sources (hydro, solar, coal, wind) sit west while population sits east. This seems to be a tech analysis. Hmm, technically feasible.
- aaron695 3y ago
  [dead]
fakedang 3y ago
Won't work because Sub-Saharan Africans hate each other with a passion. Plus it's Nigeria proposing it, which means everybody will see it as just another effort of Nigeria to boss around. Plus it's Africa, so corruption is the law.
tekla 3y ago
> The system also showed costs ranging from approximately a half-trillion dollars to just under 3 trillion. Holy shit. A 5 second check of Google for GDP shows that the combined GDP of the top 10 countries in Africa is ~2.5 Trilion (If my tipsy brain isn't completely screwing up basic addition) How the hell would they fund this? Would even China be crazy enough to fund this project?
- parker_mountain 3y ago
  It's just a proposal. What's more likely is that it's the framework for a 20 or 50 year plan to slowly unify electric grids.
- Affric 3y ago
  There are easier (and cheaper) ways for China to get control of a national grid.
xyzzy4747 3y ago
It's a nice idea in theory but won't they just funnel the money to their families and such, instead of making things operate well? I heard that's been a big problem in South Africa for example.
- pie420 3y ago
  Yeah, that's why they need china to not only finance, but also manage and implement as well. I imagine the chinese would only agree under terms like that.
wonderwonder 3y ago
China will dump a bunch of money into this. The project wont be completed because of corruption. The original leaders responsible for signing the deal will disappear to live in their mansions. The countries will still owe China and one day it will collect in a big way, at the end of a gun called forced economic collapse. China is going to own Africa.
- twelve40 3y ago
  I keep hearing that trope that evil China is going to rip poor Africa to shreds, but not really seeing it so far? they have been building railroads and mines, and haven't even dropped a single bomb so far... unlike those who tell us how truly evil China's plans are.
  - wonderwonder 3y ago
    It's already started https://apnews.com/article/china-debt-banking-loans-financial-developing-countries-collapse-8df6f9fac3e1e758d0e6d8d5dfbd3ed6 https://apnews.com/article/china-debt-banking-loans-financia...
    - dirtyid 3y ago
      No it's starting to get resolved, see recent Zambia debt restructure. The TLDR is western propaganda who owns majority of African debt wants to push PRC debt trap narrative to pressure PRC to take haircut losses while they don't. PRC said lol no, and after 2 years, traditional (i.e. IMF) and private lenders, most from west, finally agreed to debt restructuring on their end to.
  - junofan 3y ago
    It’s called debt-trap diplomacy. China already forced Tajikistan to cede territory as part of a debt forgiveness deal. I believe they took over a port in Sri Lanka as well.
    - sonotathrowaway 3y ago
throw9away6 3y ago
The distances were taking about are enormous. It would be like moving power from Seattle to Florida. I can’t talk imagine that being very practical
mabbo 3y ago
Setting aside whether this is even feasible, did anyone else notice that the map being used here is at least 12 years out of date? South Sudan is a full UN member, recognized as an independent country since 2011. The map shows lines running through their territory, but as if it's still part of Sudan.
- roberson87 3y ago
  [dead]
pleb_nz 3y ago
Imagine another USA - United States of Africa
dave333 3y ago
What is the benefit of having a huge grid vs spending the same money on many local renewable power plants with smaller local grids? I get that if the wind or sun is generating power in one part but not another but that can be overcome by having several local sources of power.
- jjk166 3y ago
  Sub-Saharan Africa isn't really known for its abundance of spare power plants. Connecting grids is an easy way to make the overall system more robust. It also makes future projects to increase energy production capacity less economically risky, and international cooperation can be geopolitically stabilizing. There's a reason that North America and Europe built continent-scale power grids.

37 points by wglb 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Really thrilled to see my country (Nigeria) proposing a sub-Saharan electrical grid…when the mofos in charge can’t even supply stable electricity in their country yet. This project will not succeed due to corruption and incompetence…you can trust Africans on that.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
thehappypm 3y ago
Wait. Those aren’t as mutually exclusive as you make it out to be. Bigger grids are more resilient than smaller ones, not the other way around. California and Texas have fairly isolated grids for roughly the same amount of people. Compared to the Midwest or the Northeast or Southeast, larger population areas, their grids fare far worse despite having on average better weather.
- junofan 3y ago
  Nigeria has 200 million people, which is an order of magnitude larger than Texas. I don’t think serving a slightly bigger population is going to help their situation.
  - pie420 3y ago
    More people, but significantly less users, and less intensive users. People in nigeria largely aren't charging electric cars, running laundry dryers, or have much industry that requires as much electricity as the industry in california and texas. In fact, I would guess that the electrical power consumption in Nigeria would be far less than either state, and the overall number of people wouldn't be as big of an impact. Any major infrastructure investments now would pay huge dividends to the people in the future. You don't plant trees because you need shade today, you plant trees because you need shade in 20 years, and that's what I think the goal is here, to prepare africa for a major technological and per capita consumption leap in the next two decades. If they start building today, with many partner countries, it'll prepare the region to succeed better.
    - piperswe 3y ago
      Some rudimentary Google research on my end shows the Texas power grid serving about 10x as much power as the Nigeria power grid.
- applied_heat 3y ago
  California is part of the WECC, it is not isolated at all.
  - thehappypm 3y ago
    The Southwest region is certainly geographically isolated; however California is doing its best to fight that with connections such as with the PNW, but those are long distance and California is still susceptible to power outages from a few weak links .
    - applied_heat 3y ago
      “California currently has 18,170MW (18.2 GW) of interconnections to neighboring states in the Western Interconnection, equivalent to approximately one-third of its annual peak electricity demand.“ In my view, 33% of annual peak is not weakly interconnected. Granted that number is from 2003. I work on hydro electric plant control systems not transmission planning so I can’t say what industry insiders would call weakly interconnected, but on the systems I have worked on one or two ties is weakly interconnected and dozens is not. https://www.electricpowergroup.com/Downloads/pFinalCAElecGenTransNeeds11-17T3.pdf https://www.electricpowergroup.com/Downloads/pFinalCAElecGen...
- martin8412 3y ago
  Bigger grids might be more resilient, but that doesn't really help all that much when dealing with sabotage like in South Africa. When you have people deliberately destroying infrastructure to get contracts for fixing it, it becomes difficult.
squarefoot 3y ago
China is involved; it's a "do ut des" scenario in which China gets resources and Africa gets low cost energy. That's the reason I'm sure it will work, and it's one of the chances the West royally missed there. Now it's all up to China, Russia and possibly Turkey.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > "do ut des" For those interested, this is Latin for "I give, so that you may give [presumably in the future]". More on topic, for the project to succeed the Chinese would need to be left in charge of operating the grid, which is likely to run into political difficulties. Building it isn't enough.
  - squarefoot 3y ago
    > For those interested, this is Latin for "I give, so that you may give [presumably in the future]". Yes, apologies for not specifying it. About the topic, I guess that the chances to obtain cheap energy, which would be vital for further industrial development in the areas involved, could convince local leaders to not mess with the projects, also with the perspective of cashing in public political support when time comes.
    - thaumasiotes 3y ago
      > I guess that the chances to obtain cheap energy, which would be vital for further industrial development in the areas involved, could convince local leaders to not mess with the projects, also with the perspective of cashing in public political support when time comes. That approach hasn't worked out for other African infrastructure, including already existing infrastructure. And one of the biggest ways to build political support is to promise to confiscate what non-Africans have. "Expropriation without compensation" is a major political slogan in South Africa. Things are similar elsewhere.

azurezyq 3y ago

China is leading UHV transmission line construction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity_transmission_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity...), because most power sources (hydro, solar, coal, wind) sit west while population sits east. This seems to be a tech analysis. Hmm, technically feasible.

aaron695 3y ago
[dead]

fakedang 3y ago

Won't work because Sub-Saharan Africans hate each other with a passion. Plus it's Nigeria proposing it, which means everybody will see it as just another effort of Nigeria to boss around. Plus it's Africa, so corruption is the law.

tekla 3y ago

> The system also showed costs ranging from approximately a half-trillion dollars to just under 3 trillion. Holy shit. A 5 second check of Google for GDP shows that the combined GDP of the top 10 countries in Africa is ~2.5 Trilion (If my tipsy brain isn't completely screwing up basic addition) How the hell would they fund this? Would even China be crazy enough to fund this project?

parker_mountain 3y ago
It's just a proposal. What's more likely is that it's the framework for a 20 or 50 year plan to slowly unify electric grids.
Affric 3y ago
There are easier (and cheaper) ways for China to get control of a national grid.

xyzzy4747 3y ago

It's a nice idea in theory but won't they just funnel the money to their families and such, instead of making things operate well? I heard that's been a big problem in South Africa for example.

pie420 3y ago
Yeah, that's why they need china to not only finance, but also manage and implement as well. I imagine the chinese would only agree under terms like that.

wonderwonder 3y ago

China will dump a bunch of money into this. The project wont be completed because of corruption. The original leaders responsible for signing the deal will disappear to live in their mansions. The countries will still owe China and one day it will collect in a big way, at the end of a gun called forced economic collapse. China is going to own Africa.

twelve40 3y ago
I keep hearing that trope that evil China is going to rip poor Africa to shreds, but not really seeing it so far? they have been building railroads and mines, and haven't even dropped a single bomb so far... unlike those who tell us how truly evil China's plans are.
- wonderwonder 3y ago
  It's already started https://apnews.com/article/china-debt-banking-loans-financial-developing-countries-collapse-8df6f9fac3e1e758d0e6d8d5dfbd3ed6 https://apnews.com/article/china-debt-banking-loans-financia...
  - dirtyid 3y ago
    No it's starting to get resolved, see recent Zambia debt restructure. The TLDR is western propaganda who owns majority of African debt wants to push PRC debt trap narrative to pressure PRC to take haircut losses while they don't. PRC said lol no, and after 2 years, traditional (i.e. IMF) and private lenders, most from west, finally agreed to debt restructuring on their end to.
- junofan 3y ago
  It’s called debt-trap diplomacy. China already forced Tajikistan to cede territory as part of a debt forgiveness deal. I believe they took over a port in Sri Lanka as well.
  - sonotathrowaway 3y ago

throw9away6 3y ago

The distances were taking about are enormous. It would be like moving power from Seattle to Florida. I can’t talk imagine that being very practical

mabbo 3y ago

Setting aside whether this is even feasible, did anyone else notice that the map being used here is at least 12 years out of date? South Sudan is a full UN member, recognized as an independent country since 2011. The map shows lines running through their territory, but as if it's still part of Sudan.

roberson87 3y ago
[dead]

pleb_nz 3y ago

Imagine another USA - United States of Africa

dave333 3y ago

What is the benefit of having a huge grid vs spending the same money on many local renewable power plants with smaller local grids? I get that if the wind or sun is generating power in one part but not another but that can be overcome by having several local sources of power.

jjk166 3y ago
Sub-Saharan Africa isn't really known for its abundance of spare power plants. Connecting grids is an easy way to make the overall system more robust. It also makes future projects to increase energy production capacity less economically risky, and international cooperation can be geopolitically stabilizing. There's a reason that North America and Europe built continent-scale power grids.