The problem is that there is no true manufacturing nor repairability capacity for high density electronics in africa. Hell, our customer in SA asks us to buy spare components for them because getting parts there from our favourite distributors is a nightmare.
My parents are involved in an organization that helps developing parts of Togo. They helped build wells, structures (schools, bathrooms, .. ) and give material for agriculture and light manufacture, fund for tutoring, such things. All the electric and mechanical machinery they donated, including vehichles, are older models and the reason is simple: they must be serviced with the available technology, and they must be simple to service.
They made a conference in our town to showcase the project and i addressed the obvious elephant in the room: what about electricity? They are dependend on china for cheap panels and inverters, and they do not want to use alternative sources that require way less tech to operate: biofuel for example. They say it's not as efficient, and i concour, but i feel there is also a geopolitic issue, they do know they are making themselves dependent on china and there might be a small print condition for the cheap solar.. and they were elusive on the answers.
Also, not programs to train electronics technicians in the next future. If i ever get involved i'd like to help with setting up repair shops and train technicians. We'll see in the next few years what happens.
Are we really able to service solar panels and batteries in Europe either, for example? Or most of the time is just a game of moving refurbished devices to replace the broken ones, that are then shipped back to... China? to be refurbished once again?
I know that for more costly EV batteries there is some refurbishment capacity in Europe but what about the rest?
My parents are involved in an organization that helps developing parts of Togo. They helped build wells, structures (schools, bathrooms, .. ) and give material for agriculture and light manufacture, fund for tutoring, such things. All the electric and mechanical machinery they donated, including vehichles, are older models and the reason is simple: they must be serviced with the available technology, and they must be simple to service.
They made a conference in our town to showcase the project and i addressed the obvious elephant in the room: what about electricity? They are dependend on china for cheap panels and inverters, and they do not want to use alternative sources that require way less tech to operate: biofuel for example. They say it's not as efficient, and i concour, but i feel there is also a geopolitic issue, they do know they are making themselves dependent on china and there might be a small print condition for the cheap solar.. and they were elusive on the answers.
Also, not programs to train electronics technicians in the next future. If i ever get involved i'd like to help with setting up repair shops and train technicians. We'll see in the next few years what happens.