https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKORsrlN-2k

From Mail&Guardian.

Elon Musk says the new suite of batteries being offered by Tesla Motors Inc. can revolutionize electricity for the world’s poorest citizens the way mobile technology disrupted the telecommunications industry.

(Musk is a Canadian-American entrepreneur, engineer, inventor and investor. He is the CEO of SpaceX, CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors, and chairman of SolarCity.)

Coupled with solar panels or wind turbines, powerful lithium-ion batteries can store energy and provide electricity for people facing what’s called “energy poverty.”

“In a lot of places there are no utility lines,” Musk said Thursday night at the introduction of Tesla Energy products. “This allows you to go completely off grid. It’s analogous to the way that mobile leapfrogged landlines.”

About 1.3 billion people worldwide don’t have access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency. Almost 97 percent of those people live in sub-Saharan Africa and developing Asia, according to the agency. Those regions could be good locations for so-called microgrids—self-contained systems of solar panels and batteries.

“It’s a huge and promising opportunity,” said Peter Asmus, an analyst with Navigant Consulting Inc. If declining prices of solar panels and batteries continue as expected, “that’s the game changer,” he said in a telephone interview.

…Tesla’s unit for a typical U.S. home would cost about $3,000—almost double the $1,686 per-capita gross national income of Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Bank.

…“The challenge is how do you get people to pay,” Asmus said.

Read more at Mail&Guardian.