Chinese solar panel boom threatens Pakistan’s debt-ridden grid | Industry rushes to switch to clean energy as cost of state power network becomes crippling - eviltoast

basically:

Pakistan, with Chinese financing, solved a problem of frequent rotating blackouts by building coal-fired power plants. Those are more expensive than solar, so people are installing small-scale solar right and left…which means that the coal-fired power plants aren’t financially viable.

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  • Sop@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 months ago

    Kinda weird to blame China for offering a loan Pakistan asked for. This whole situation seems to be more of a result of lack of market regulation. Western companies are taking advantage of this lack of regulation and the government’s response is to… let the working class pay even more for its already overpriced energy.

    They should force those companies to use the energy they probably begged the government to provide for them or they’d leave the country, and in the meantime gradually transition to the cheaper solar energy.

    • Match!!@pawb.social
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      2 months ago

      i think it’s just weird phrasing, like, the country’s grid is dirty and expensive and it’s awesome that cheap solar is threatening it

      • Sop@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        2 months ago

        If you read the article it describes how this phenomenon is really bad for the Pakistani government who are in debt and the working class who can’t invest in solar panels and thus end up having to pay way more for their already expensive energy to compensate for companies who are no longer using it.