Solar power is a natural fit for the developing South. Nicholas Thompson and Ricardo Bayon explain why in an outstanding article, Bright Lights, Small Villages.
"It may sound far-fetched to ask poor rural communities to adopt solar and renewable energy before rich developed countries. But in fact, solar energy makes vastly more sense in Patriensa than it does in Philadelphia. Americans tend to take electricity for granted. You can buy a hair dryer, plug it in, and turn it on just about anywhere, thanks to a "grid" of generating stations, power lines, and transformers that enmeshes the entire country.
"But that grid is the product of hundreds of billions of dollars of government subsidies and private investment over the years. In developing countries, by contrast, fully functioning grids tend to be limited to urban areas, are usually nearing obsolescence, or cannot keep up with demand. Most places lack any grid at all. And even if poor countries had the money or inclination to build grids--most have more pressing worries--bringing electricity to small rural villages... wouldn't be at the top of their list.
"Solar power and other decentralized sources of energy can help get around these problems. Mobile phones in Africa, Asia, and Latin America provide a hopeful parallel. For decades, people in developing nations had to put up with expensive and poorly designed telephone networks controlled by corrupt and inefficient bureaucrats. But over the past five years, entrepreneurs have built cellular-phone networks that, in effect, circumvent the national telephone system. Five years ago, Ghana didn't have mobile phones. But as a U.N. task force recently discovered, more cell phone connections have been turned on in Africa in the last five years than land-line connections in the past century."
