| I can answer partially for the South African context. Our state owned entity Eskom pushes the prices up every year and in theory this should make solar power both residential and large scale more attractive. First off, battery theft in SA is a USD 100m business [1] and secondly, our utility infrastructure allows about 10–15% renewables [2] before drastic infrastructure changes are needed. Thirdly, the policital scene is quite a hotpot and most foreign businesses don't want to own non-movable assets here. Despite these challenges, your observation seems to still be correct and I know of two large scale solar installations in the Northern Cape. We don't see a lot of people installing their own solar panels (despite all the load shedding) and I suspect that this is due to both the stalling economy and theft/procurement/etc issues. I think that if that 10%–15% limitations can be overcome and if the political situation stabilises, solar power would explode here and we would rival Spain in homegrown solar technology. But I also think that air-to-fuel solutions (if not a pie in the sky) would take off very quickly. [1] An unnamed engineer that builds large commercial buildings in SA.
[2] A talk by the Stellenbosch solar research group. I don't understand fully how this works, but the intermittent supply of renewables and current infrastructure layout does play a roll. Interestingly, a virtual square of land in the Northern Cape that is less than 5% of the province area IIRC could power the whole country. |