Towards Clean Energy?

While governments in the West continue to argue about the best ways to tackle the ever-increasing emission of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, we do well to note that the fastest growth in mobile phone penetration is currently happening in Africa and the poorer Asian nations, where the infrastructure for landlines is absent and the capital isn’t available to invest. Mobile phones do not require the same extensive and expensive infrastructure in order to provide access, and are at home in a society which is used to production and consumption taking place locally. It is a lesson which should not be lost on us as we consider reducing carbon emissions.
While the Victorian State Government has announced another brown coal-powered electricity generator, it perpetuates the mass-production in remote location approach which underpins most Western economies. A downside of this approach in electricity generation – aside from the massive increase in carbon emissions – is the loss of electricity in transmission, up to as much as 80%. On average we need then to produce at least twice as much electricity as is ever consumed at the point of delivery. Solar power, then, brings production and consumption to the same locality, reducing transmission loss. Here in the West, however, we are unlikely to adopt such a disaggregated approach to electricity supply. Poorer countries, on the other hand, may – as with mobile phone penetration – provide a much more creative response to the electricity needs of their communities. Introduction of solar power into such communities, while initially providing small stocks of electricity, may provide a basis for development which is both environmentally more responsible and with the capacity to grow as the minimal requirements of small communities expands.
Here in the West, the cost is large in comparison with the marginal improvement in supply capacity, in contrast with the possibilities of subsistence communities.
Such an approach should not only be feasible, but offer greater security than the current mega-production centres upon which the current electricity generation strategies are now based. There are more than enough rooftops available in any major city in this country which are available for solar panels. With over a million homes generating electricity across a wide expanse, the capacity can be obtained without further scarring the landscape, and at the same time provide a decentralised supply which is far less vulnerable to outages. Should one of our major generators falter, there would be serious disruption to supply. But solar panels on myriad rooftops offers similar continuity of supply as the internet – interconnected nodes across numerous sites which can shift the load as needed. Loss of one panel provides minimal disruption, alongside the greater correlation between production and consumption quantities.
Perhaps it is the African and Asian communities which offer the best alternative to alternative and environmentally friendly electricity, because they have much less invested in existing technologies. Might our aid and development organisations provide a lead here?