Bitcoin Forum

Does Bitcoin hold the key to sustainable development in Africa? and the planet?

Today, over 620 million people live without access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa; that's twice the population of the United States without access to the modern day electrical conveniences and necessities that facilitate our lives and work each day. Africa is currently home to some of the world's fastest growing economies, however, lack of affordable and reliable energy hinders tangible progress for much of its population.

In addition to housing some of the world's most promising economies, Africa is the sunniest continent on Earth. Despite present issues surrounding energy access, favourable sun-light conditions and historically low solar-panel costs indicate that the cheapest and quickest way for Africa to become electrified in the future is through solar power. Unfortunately, investing in Africa can be problematic due to high levels of government corruption. Many believe that the advent of crypto-currency and blockchain technology may hold the solution.

Solar powering Africa with Bitcoin

The solar energy crowd-selling platform www.TheSunExchange.com (http://www.TheSunExchange.com), which won 'Best Bitcoin and Blockchain Business in Africa' in 2016, has taken the international remittance properties of Bitcoin and applied it into solving Africa's energy crisis. Most solar panels in the world are installed on the roofs of commercial and industrial buildings such as factories and warehouses. This is not the case in many regions of Africa, where projects under $1million are left unfunded as debt from African banks is expensive and development banks won?t write cheques that small.

To close this funding gap for solar energy, The Sun Exchange hosts technically validated solar projects as ?crowd-sales?, inviting individuals around the world to purchase the photo-voltaic cells that make up the solar panels using Bitcoin micro-payments. Following the principles of crowd-funding, The Sun Exchange solar projects are pre-financed, and only constructed once all available solar cells have been purchased. To overcome the volatility of bitcoin pricing during a 60-day crowd-sale period, the platform tracks the BTC price and allocates accordingly the number of solar cells to the buyer when the crowd-sale completes.

Once the solar plant is in operation, the owners of the solar cells receive a 20 year stream of passive Bitcoin income from the rental payments of the electricity user. This means the solar cell owners earn an average rate of return of 10% per annum for two decades.  A South African school and now a tyre recycling factory have been funded in this way, and the solar cells are owned globally by individual digital currency users with ongoing solar powered nano-income payments made possible because of the unique properties of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin and the zero carbon solid state economy

While Bitcoin?s potential to fuel investment in and distributed ownership of our future global energy supply is promising, the amount of energy that the Bitcoin mining network requires continues to draw criticism. Some claim that it will consume as much electricity as the country of Denmark by 2020.  In view that services such as The Sun Exchange enable Bitcoin to be used for financing renewable energy generation, how does this impact the Bitcoin ecosystems energy balance?

No one knows for certain how much energy the Bitcoin network requires to run. In a recent Silicon Valley meetup, computer scientist Andreas Anonolpolis proposed that the Bitcoin mining network may require around 350MW of power to run, which is just over 3 TWh (terra watt hours) of electricity use each year. With an assumption that the majority of Bitcoin mining takes place in coal powered China, then the annual carbon emissions will be 3066000 metric tonnes. That's double the carbon footprint of the world?s entire fleet of passenger-laden Boeing 747's, if they were to fly continuously around the globe at once.

At a $1000 BTC price, one Bitcoin can be used to finance 1 kW of solar power plant. If that solar plant were to be installed in sunny but coal reliant and energy hungry Africa, 1kW of solar panels will generate 1800kWh of electricity per year, offsetting nearly 2 tonnes of carbon emissions.  In this case, the energy it took to mine that Bitcoin (666kWh) will be paid back in just under 18 weeks. Given that a solar panel will carry on generating clean electricity for at least 25 years, a single Bitcoin used to fund solar energy actually creates a positive balance of  400000kWh (400MWh) of clean sun-powered electricity over the system's lifespan. The Bitcoin that financed it still exist, and are being traded in the markets doing work.

Bitcoin is money created on a silicon chip powered by electricity. It can now be used to finance silicon chips that produce electricity which can be sold for money. Are we potentially witnessing the dawn of a 100% silicon based clean energy economy? In Africa, we may well be.

Wouldn't it be more productive to power Bitcoin directly with solar energy in Africa.

1. bitcoin mining costs are not an electric concern.. its the ASIC price itself that kills off ROI
    one asic costing a non asic manufacturer = $2100+ (plus means delivery PSU ventilation not included)
    one asic costing a asic manufacturer = $0
    this is because for every asic they sell to the world the asic manufacturer keeps 2+ asics and spare fiat to pay electric, wages and other costs.
    electric cost to get a btc in china $225, $450 america and $900 UK. but america, UK and africa would also need to stump up $2100+ for the asic itself.

2. if it costs $1000 for a solar panel to power an asic and $2100+ for the asic itself. the ROI required is well over $3k. sorry but its not going to work out.

3. african will fry the asic's, or atleast require 2x$1000 solar investment to cover the ventilation costs aswell as the asic. making ROI requirement ~$4k

4. african labour costs (minimum wage) are also low, which due to bitcoins fee war, has priced africa out of seeing utility in bitcoin

5. to raise point 4 in more detail. if you will rebuttle the fee war by talking about LN. .. LN is permissioned contracts with penalties and requiring second party consent. which makes it less appealing and less utility than M-pesa

6. most africans can get a small solar panel enough to give 5volts of electric to a mobile phone. and use M-pesa. africa is not suitable or desirable for a mining farm

sorry to be blunt, but the utopian dream of the OP, and the reality of utility in africa are on opposite sides

it isn't a question of productivity it is a matter of cost of electricity per kWh. You would also need to consider stability of data connection which would be an issue in many places in Africa. The point in my post if that now Bitcoins exist, money that wasnt there before, it can be used to finance solar panels in Africa which then create electricity very well due to the optimal sunlight conditions. The revenue created by the solar panels can be distributed back to the solar panel owners in Bitcoin.

The amount of electricity generated over the lifespan of the solar panel greatly exceeds the amount of energy it took to generate the Bitcoin in the first place. Hence why this would lead to a virtuous circle and lead to a clean energy based economy.

To a large extent, these are correct observations based on today's current economic climate. I'm also of the opinion that the major concern should simply be the recovery cost for the ASIC, rather than electricity costs, since a long-term calculation anyway means the asic gets obsolete very quickly so that is the chief concern for any would-be miner.

2. If the 1k solar panel is a one time cost, then it might work out for a lifetime of at least 3 Asics (panels do last longer now I think), if the plan is to mine that long. In that case, this even pushes you to only think of the Asic recovery. The solar panel is basically your replacement energy source - even if mining doesn't work out, you can use the energy. Get enough policymakers behind it and you can even sell your energy back to the govt if your mining ceases.

3. Not all of Africa has the kind of heat you're talking about. A LOT of Eastern Africa has very mild mean temperaturess. Ethiopia and a lot of Kenya, both with well-developed infrastructure for mining at least in the capitals (Addis and Nairobi, respectively) , have lots of sun all year round and is on average in the 15s to 20s Celcius. Even Europe has blistering summers more than double that temperature. That's already a natural advantage on cooling costs.

4 and 5. Agree very much, unless mining also comes in tandem with innovation that allows low tech users to access bitcoin, it's not going to work. You need to replicate M-pesa's success with bitcoin.

Perhaps I didnt make my point clear enough, I am not suggesting at that we mine Bitcoin in Afirca, OR power Bitcoin Mines with solar panels, but the reverse. We finance solar panels WITH Bitcoins. That is the tipping point to a new economic system based on solid state clean energy. No fossil fuels, no moving parts. And it is not Utopian, it is happening already whether you believe it or not. A bit like Donald Trumps approach to climate change!

Throughout Africa people skipped wired communications and went straight to mobile. People are skipping bank accounts and straight to mobile money systems like MPesa. Africa is also skipping fossil fuel based infrastructure and going straight to solar, and The Sun Exchange are enabling people using Bitcoin to finance and own the solar panels and the revenue they create. And those Bitcoins dont get exhausted they stay in circulation. It is a new economy based on silicon.

so your not looking for a self sufficient economy.. your looking for bitcoin donations to buy solar panels.
in short get people to hand you BTC so you can convert it to fiat, and the buy solar panels. which then are placed in africa so that communities can get power.

hmm.. better off doing a fiat kick starter.
unless you find a way for the solar panels to be productive to self fund their own expansion, you wont get far. and it no longer becomes about bitcoin aswell if the production isnt producing bitcoin to self fund expansion(you admit its not about mining).

i at first wanted to put aside the 'donation' requests of $1000 per panel beg, and instead handle what your wrote as if it was actually a utopian idea of self sufficiency.. but now its not about self sufficiency or bitcoin production.. it brings me back to my first sceptical opinion of just a donation beg.

might be worth you trying it in the fiat donation/charity websites.. after all fiat is literally materialised out of nothing and thrown about aimlessly this day.

1. taking bitcoin (which has good asset value) just to convert to fiat(which has no asset value) to buy a panel. makes no sense.
    you dont hold the bitcoin anymore, the donator has lost a valuable asset. etc etc. but.....
    taking fiat (which has no asset value) just to buy a panel. makes sense.

then (the part that does spark your interest and the interest of bitcoiners)

2. when the fiat revenue of the electric makes returns. you then buy bitcoin. and distribute the bitcoin to the landowners with solar panels.

but as i said. your still stuck with the fee war vs permissioned LN contract dilemma of bitcoins spending utility for low wage 'microtransactions' which m-pesa solves far more cheaply.

so that why i said for point one. to do a fiat kickstarter. to get the panels. and then sort out the bitcoin circulation/utility dilemma

At what point have I ever asked for donations? Of course a donation system wouldnt be sustainable. This is new financial system - Bitcoin and Solar. Bitcoin has value, solar does work for free and creates value.

The system that I am refferring too, that already exists and is operating, uses Bitcoin to finance solar panels, and the solar energy that they create is SOLD to Africans, and this revenue is sent back to the Bitcoin contributor IN Bitcoin. The revenue received by the Bitcoin payer is equivalent to 10% IRR against fiat. This can not happen in Africa without Bitcoin due to fiat international remittance costs. This solves the funding gap for solar energy in Africa and allows people in the West to earn income from solar powering Africa.

The Sun Exchange doesn't need to do a Kickstarter, as The Sun Exchange IS Kickstarter for solar. The key differentiator of The Sun Exchange is that the contributors are directly purchasing solar assets in Africa and then securing the income they generate for 20 years, payable in Bitcoin. The Sun Exchange accepts BTC AND fiat payments in recognition that not everyone uses Bitcoin and that people that do use it want to hold.

People are using The Sun Exchange as a proxy bitcoin exchange, paying in fiat and getting paid out in BTC.

Also, many people are buying Bitcoin for the first time just to be able to use the system as there is an arbitrage in Africa meaning that for $100 sent using BTC, they end up owning $110 worth of solar assets.

yes your a middle man.. an exchange i got that part straight away..

but..


that suggests you want people to hand you bitcoin.. which raised my sceptical mind..
where because you are not a solar panel manufacturer. the actual purchase of solar panels is done in FIAT.
hence me thinking promoting a kickstarter asking for bitcoin is a waste of an asset,.. because its converted to fiat to buy the equipment.

so i replied its better to ask for fiat to buy solar panels.
and when the electric revenue from the solar panels is returned. you then swap it for bitcoin to pay the land owners of the solar panel locations.

to which i now see you already do offer fiat payment. which you should concentrate on as the 'burning of value initial loss of investment'.. not bitcoin

the bits i found iffy were when it seemed you were asking for asset rich bitcoin to be wasted to buy a fiat sold solar panel. and as i said
this can be sidestepped by asking for fiat to burn at the purchasing of the panel from a solar manufacturer.

and then
the interesting part begins..
when electric is produced. and 'put into the grid' your revenue can then be converted to bitcoin for the african community to spend on groceries and such

but your still having to deal with the fee war vs LN permissioned dilemma surrounding spending bitcoin, which is less appealing than m-pesa.


EG

A. solar panel purchase.. concentrate on burning fiat to purchase panels
B. convert fiat 'ongrid revenue' to bitcoin to be passed around (btc put into circulation while you burn the fiat, not other way round)
C. sort out a micropayment mechanism that is not permissioned contracts and without a large fee. to ensure utility in africa

I think  op is actually asking everyone to support him in this project. he is inviting everyone to become partners of his project. He can buy solar panels with fiat money. May be he doesnt have that much fund in fiat to spend . Thats why he is proposing this idea. Collecting bitcoins is easy than transfering fiat money . Thats why I think he is asking to fund in bitcoins. Anyway it is a good project if  executed properly. But I dont think anyone will invest bitcoins just like that. Who knows the op will pay the income generated from the shares.It will be better if you post this in your local forum .There you may get some investors who can actually physically see the progress of the mining site.

just found the website...

seems the business plan is

(A)african location asks for panels and agrees to pay the lease for 20 years..
(I)world investors kickstart the project paying for the panels..

(A)african location pays 'sun exchange' the lease
(S)sunexchange pays back world investors.

hmm.. i see even less bitcoin circulation involved then this topic is 'promoting' and more so just bitcoin being used to buy panels.

unless the OP is proposing a side project thats new and not yet part of the sunexchange business model. and thus still a concept, then i dont see where bitcoin circulates around africa
eg money flow of current websites offering
(Africa) ->  (SunEx) < - > (Investor)
(Africa) ->  (SunEx) < - > (Investor)
(Africa) ->  (SunEx) < - > (Investor)

i dont see where (Africa) gets bitcoin circulating locally

Just to clarify my earlier post. I wasn't thinking of mining, which would be unlikely to be productive. I was thinking that the solar power could be used to run a node and some form of satellite receiver. This would bring Bitcoin payments to remote locations, and could help to build their economies.

You got it. I have actually been running this project since 2014 and in June 2016we financed a 15kW solar plant to power a school using Bitcoin. we chose to focus on Bitcoin as it is much easier to deal with accross borders than fiat. Those Bitcoiners are now getting BTC income. We have raised 14BTC for our latest project to solar power a tyre recycling factory in South Africa. Invitation on this post is for people to visit our website www.thesunexchange.com and see what they think they would be willing, if anything, to put into electrifying Africa on the basis that they will receive a BTC revenue stream at an IRR of 10% pegged to the South African Rand.

The Bitcoins enter the South African Bitcoin exchange 'Luno'. Demand for Bitcoin in South Africa is very strong, hence why there is always an arbitrage on on the global/South African BTC price (BTC price in SA currently trading at equivalent of USD 959 where as is 919 on Coinbase). The reason why; there are many workers in South Africa that need Bitcoin to send wages back to their families in neighboring African countries. They need to do this via Bitcoin as they are unbanked or can not get permission from the South African reserve bank to send an international wire. The more Bitcoin is entered into the African economy, the easier it will be for wealth to circulate around the continent.

So it is good for Africa. What is in it for The Sun Exchange to use Bitcoin? By accepting enabling Bitcoin as the payment rail for The Sun Exchange: 1) It enables nano-investing (<$10 per unit) with payouts over 20 years on such as small investment, only Bitcoin allow such tiny increments to be sent back to the solar cell owners. 2) It gives transparency to The Sun Exchange Users or prospective customers, you can check the wallet addresses and payment flow into and out of our projects so that you can validate that there is no 'fibs' about revenue production. 3) Smart contracts between the solar plant and the Bitcoin exchanges so that revenue created from selling electricity is automatically distributed back to solar asset owners automatically. This reduces our running costs and also gives our Users confidence that ongoing income is not dependent on The Sun Exchange.

Bitcoin mining is too power hungry to make this practical. I understand the guys at Solar Coin are planning on doing this, fitting raspberry pie nodes to each solar panel.

This is genius! I can easily envision the world's cheapest-built largest solar power array smack-dab in the middle of the hottest and driest part of Africa supplying virtually free electricity to factories and households populated with millions of upright mammals not dependant on a readily supply of water or food. How many shares am I able to buy during the upcoming ICO? Further, is the venerable Larry Christopher Master Bates involved in this venture overseeing his Amazon women management team?

Hmmm... if your understanding of African socio-economics came from viewing The Lion King then I can understand why you may think that. Back on planet Earth, the population of Africa is 1.2 billion and they do have power hungry buildings that accommodate solar panel installations quite nicely.

You can see who is involved in the project here (no Master Bates involved): https://thesunexchange.com/the-core-team#36

Hmmm... if your understanding were of my understanding, then I can't understand how you came to the conclusion that I was alluding to existing power hungry buildings when I clearly expressed building such in the middle of nowhere where hardly any water could be had, let alone food for the multitudes already living there, the very folks your envision's designed to help.

Surely, you weren't first playing the sensational card so to illicit emotions, then jump ship from the truly poor to the quasi-poor white-collar workers in Africa, were you? I may or may not be versed in African socio-economics, but I sure as hell can recognize ... okay, I'm not sure what I recognize here, but I'm willing to bet it's something.

https://i.imgur.com/TpwQEgq.png

^^^ First use of the Szabo clasped hands facepalm. Know your meme: Szabo facepalmed after the panel moderator introduced all her friends, excited to be in their presence (perhaps cumming in her panties), but when Craig Steven Wright starting blabbering out his accolades, the moderator stopped him mid-stride and demanded of him, "Who are you" immediately resulting in the captured image above. ref. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdvQTwjVmrE (just view first couple minutes is all)

1) bitcoin tx fee's are more than an hours labour.. so no 'nano fees.
2) if you were to use LN then LN transactions(smart contracts) of nano fee's are NOT transparent as they are offchain. plus they require permissioned contracts which would require 20 year LOCKS on the funds..
   if you were to publicise the private LN payments. thats the same as just showing a mysql database trade history, so not real transparence just a vail of transparency.
3) smart contracts are permissioned payments. meaning the investors funds are locked in where the luna exchange becomes the bank manager (LN hub)

---

separate issue:

ok.. so. bitcoin is $950 in africa today.

so a $1k 1kw solar panel is 1.05btc~ (rough number for easy display)

so some investor hands you 1.05btc~ to buy a solar sell ..
you convert it to fiat and buy a solar panel for $1k

it gets installed at lets say some Tyre ltd company in africa..
and then Tyre ltd then pays back $100 a year for the lease (your website says 10% returns(8% initial after fees))

so imagine its 2018. bitcoin is then $2k.. Tyre hands luna $100 or 0.05btc..
so imagine its 2019. bitcoin is then $2.5k.. Tyre hands luna $100 or 0.04btc..
so imagine its 2018. bitcoin is then $3k.. Tyre hands luna $100 or 0.033btc..

as you can see. after 10 years the investor will not get his 1.05btc back(10x10%=100% return).. although technically he gets $1000 of 'value back' in btc form its not the same as 1.05btc.
hense my first comment about why would an investor hand over a good asset .. when the obvious conclusion is its better to burn fiat..

---

secondly.
this still does not explain why lets say the american investor paying in btc.. is then helping africa become BTC friendly.

after all those wanting to move Zar from one african country to another, are just going to deposit Zar into your 'Luna' exchange and the family else where will receive the wages in Zar. the bit in the middle is just your internal gimmick of taking zar from one person and handing it to another, but mascaraded in the middle to look like bitcoin is involved in the blind hope that by making it appear that you are playing with bitcoin it will absolve you of any financial conduct regulations.. (it wont)

your exchange in the middle 'pretending' to be a rail. is not actually a rail as the deposits and withdrawals and swaps would be in zar in the end. because both sides are just physically touching Zar.

you have yet to show where the BITCOIN utility is.(reason for african citizens to keep bitcoins.. or even able to hold bitcoins without an LN smart contract)

i say that not as a naive learner but as someone that has seen dozens of projects in the past and as someone who loves to run real life scenarios to see where the actually utility of business plans/niches are.

you really are just playing gimmicks with how your business is structured. so either you need to reword your business plan. or you need to just go burn some fiat investors instead.

I'm just gonna leave the following two links here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1409515.0

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-sun-exchange-a-solar-powered-financial-system-bitcoin#/

gleb, i like them to atleast dig a hole for themself first.

let them back track and change their story to see how desparate they are to sell utopia.
well ice to eskimo's
well i mean sand to people in the desert.
oops
i mean silica to africans. :D :D

its like a bad episode of "the shark tank" or "dragons den" seeing people with a bad and obvious shady business plans, still invited to the tv show to talk about the shady business purely to get to see the business plan get ripped apart

i know i jumped the gun on the other topic. so i guess you deserve to jump the gun here.
but sometimes people need to learn from these unethical utopian hypes. so that people are aware of what they are being fed

So all fiat of the world couldn't fix African problem of poverty and lack of electricity and now suddenly bitcoin will help it?I know that even without advanced calculation this is not something we can achieve.
I know for a fact that if we put solar panels on 1/18th of the land area of the Sahara, it would make enough power for all of Europe and Northern Africa. So tell me why why no one did it already?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2014/07/02/why-dont-we-put-solar-panels-in-the-sahara-desert-as-a-source-of-electricity/#5eafa2b613d7 (http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2014/07/02/why-dont-we-put-solar-panels-in-the-sahara-desert-as-a-source-of-electricity/#5eafa2b613d7)

the reason..
me and gleb have alluded to but not yet bluntly pointed out.

is that when a middle man holds the bags of funds. not much of it ends up actually doing anything in reality but being handled by the middleman.

the middle man will show lots of pictures they googled and lots of sob stories of needs for funding. and they will happily send you mass produced volumes of paperwork showing gratitude.

but when it comes to questioning the end goal and investigating the end goal........ silence begins to be the middlemans answer.
.. followed by anger, insults and threats as they realise the last year of preparing their mony raising starts falling apart

Because prior to the advent of Bitcoin, nobody was willing to throw fiat at such a project, but now that Investards have proven themselves to throw crypto at projects in spite of demonstrations of their nefarious intent, the moon's the limit, especially since we have trade periodicals publishing paid-for articles advancing their respective concerns (see my sig) if not outright penning sensationalized articles themselves as fodder in garnering advertisement revenue while also linking to other ventures under periodicals' auspices on the same page as said articles.

Oh Franky you do make me chuckle! The point is that there are 650 million people looking for the utopia you live in. You have electricity. They don't. How are they going to get it? Corrupt African governments siphon off aid money intended for building infrastructure by the hundreds of millions a year to cost of tax payers around the world. They are the middle men walking away with the sacks of cash. We have built a system that gets funds direct to infrastructure and we take a fair share for arranging and technically vetting the solar projects. Value added.

It costs us less to send and receive Bitcoin than any other form of currency, that is why we use it. Although we see it can be a store of value we are using it is a remittance system and people are buying Bitcoin for the first time to send payments too us for buying solar cells which we then convert to fiat again. Only Bitcoin for a few minutes between the buyer and the seller and the Bitcoin is now liquid in the South African digital currency exchanges.

No one willing to throw money at such a project huh? What about $9 bilion on just one plant in the sahara which is the first of many? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/04/morocco-to-switch-on-first-phase-of-worlds-largest-solar-plant

"okay, I'm not sure what I recognize here, but I'm willing to bet it's something."

I think the term you are looking for is neo-colonialism. A romantic notion that modern day capitalists shouldn't interfere with tribal societies living in mud huts and pushing our technological wares onto them.

I live here in Africa, and the rapidly developing population want access to the same services and technology and electricity as you have.

Not being a scholar myself, so if neo-colonialism equals "I know something's afoot"or similar, then you nailed it. TBC, when I think outside the box, I'm usually outside the box while thinking it.

Look, dude, all that said, I can't remember why I'm even commenting here, for the vision is great and the dude, perhaps you, there in [South] Africa seems okay upon a cursory review.

Later, bud.

Bruno

and so it begins



the morocco project is not a "sun exchange" project, its just a google search he found.
for a guy living in africa, seems he is quoting a UK media source

Dangerz
yes countries are getting into solar.. thats not a doubt.
but it doesnt legitimize your business.

nor does your proposal explain why bitcoiners should get involved as you fail to explain(beyond the gimmick of your internal switcheroo pretend) how bitcoin would actually become part of africans daily lives.

I am looking at your proposal from an entrepreneur point of view and being versatile with Africa, can say it has got some prospect and business model that is adoptable elsewhere. But bulk of what I feel should be a would-be-investor's concerns are:
1. the sunexchange, I see it's a SA company, they are middlemen here, what tells that one can trust them with one's Bitcoins, not just for a year but decades;
2. where exactly is your market, Africa is a vast land and you can't do business in some areas;
3. is there a standing agreement and contract with any solar company;
4. what is thesunexchange to you?

if your really into solar

join https://solarcoin.org/en/front-page/

save you headaches

According to what I've read so far there is a hidden agenda into this company still they are benefiting for the bitcoin price increase per year but the idea of their project is good but I think it would not benefit those very poor people on Africa those benefiting would be in the middle class people because they will put the solar on buildings not at homes of those people who will need it most.

Getting started with home wind energy projects can set you back a pretty penny if you buy a finished product, but if you're a little bit handy and don't mind scrounging for materials and getting creative in the garage or backyard, you can try your hand at building one of these DIY wind turbines for about $30 in materials. (http://www.treehugger.com/wind-technology/build-diy-wind-turbine-30.html)

If I remember my Weather 101 studies correctly, wind is capable of blowing at night, whereas the sun goes to bed passing the torch, so to speak, to the cold-hearted orb that rules the night till the brave helios wakes, bringing the warmth the countryside needs.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2014/07/02/why-dont-we-put-solar-panels-in-the-sahara-desert-as-a-source-of-electricity/#42e5e8ab13d7

We are about to integrate SolarCoin wallets into our user dashboard so that people buying solar cells also get allocated their Solar Coin.

You can see on SolarCoin.org's home page that The Sun Exchange is listed as one of their supporters.

No hidden agenda. The Sun Exchange is using Bitcoin as a low cost global payment rail. Not all Bitcoiners use it as a store of value. It benefits the very poor. The Sun Exchange's Users can democratically decide if a solar project for a poor community should get financed, where as traditional finance options would ignore such projects as the end-users of the electricity are unbanked. This gets rural communities electrified helping with education and prevents biomass depletion.

When there is no grid present for back-up, one would implement maintenance free salt-water batteries: http://aquionenergy.com/

If I remember some old calculations I did a few years ago, I don't think it is possible at all to maintain the Bitcoin network and have it run in an efficient manner, AND make your money back on the entire system. I don't think that's even possible with the recent advancements in SP tech.

I'm going to go over franky1's calculations and compare them to what I've written down, but they seem to be similar.

dont worry, the OP's proposal was never about using solar to maintain the network (mining)
dont worry, the OP's proposal was never about bitcoin to bring it into the circulation of african people
dont worry, the OP's proposal was never about bitcoin used as remittance.

the reality is that the remittance is done inhouse by solar exchanges luna exchange.. with the 'gimmick' that its using bitcoin as a 'rail' simply by showing the remittance as a bitcoin balance on luna's MySQL database for minutes

1. The Sun Exchange SA is wholly owned by The Sun Exchange Inc. a USA Delaware Corp. The trust is earned through successful project delivery and subsequent press coverage: http://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/tech/solar-powered-money/. No bitcoins are held by The Sun Exchange, they are immediatly sold on digital currency exchanges and the fiat is used to buy physical solar cells. You can check and see the payments made into the wallet address for the latest project https://thesunexchange.com/tyre-corporation-45-kw-solar-pv-plant (https://thesunexchange.com/tyre-corporation-45-kw-solar-pv-plant) here: https://blockchain.info/address/16aMgHgd6wBQVHjoaUEsEeRqe89aX2sgzq
2. Funders for project are distributed globally. Projects are presently localized to Southern and Eastern Africa.
3. There is a framework agreement between The Sun Exchange and international solar installation company Soventix. The user of the solar cells purchased through The Sun Exchange is under a lease agreement with the Sun Exchange's Users.
4. It is everything to me.

Thank you for considering my proposal,

Abe

But solar cells create energy. So a Bitcoin once mined can bring into being something that creates a positive energy balance. A Bitcoin is not locked in as a solar cell, it finances it into being and then the Bitcoin gets retraded and used elsewhere, perhaps to finance more solar cells.

At a $1000 BTC price, one Bitcoin can be used to finance 1 kW of solar power plant. If that solar plant were to be installed in sunny South Africa, 1kW of solar panels will generate 1800kWh of electricity per year, In this case, the energy it took to mine that Bitcoin (666kWh) will be paid back in just under 18 weeks. Given that a solar panel will carry on generating clean electricity for at least 25 years, a single Bitcoin used to fund solar energy actually creates a positive balance of 400000kWh (400MWh) of clean sun-powered electricity over the system’s lifespan.

I am from the school of thought that Bitcoin:

A) is not just a store of value but a tool to be used as a transfer of value... as a currency.
B) Works better then fiat for getting money from Country A to Country B.
C) The more people use it and transactions done with it and use cases of Bitcoin are found, will legitimatly increase the price of bitcoin due to demand, rather than through speculation.

The Sun Exchange is not pertaining to be doing anything fancy with Bitcoin other than enabling realtime global solar revenue distribution from micro-investments - not feasible without Bitcoin.

The ramifications of this application of Bitcoin for Africa is measurable and significant. Bringing Bitcoin into Africa for any purpose,  but in this case to fund solar projects, increases local exchange liquidity, lowering the BTC price. I already explained how many Africans can not open bank accounts, and Bitcoin is a great alternative. It is catching on. BitPesa just raised $2.5 million to expand their intra Africa Bitcoin Excahnge.  

You can read some of the legitimate press coverage on The Sun Exchange projects here: www.moneyweb.co.za/news/tech/solar-powered-money/ here http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/751/150176.html and refer to this award of recognition for helping evolve the Bitcoin industry: http://www.fintech-africa.com/blog/feed/the-sun-exchange-named-best-african-blockchain-bitcoin-company-2016-at-the-african-fintech-awards-2016

so this was my initial point from the start.

its not a bitcoin project.

its just a fiat kickstarter

where is the proposal of expanding bitcoins circulation in africa.

your initial proposal was wrote that its not just another fiat project. but a project to grow bitcoins utility in africa and get people using bitcoin more.
i was envisioning that you used the solar panels for mining.
i was envisioning that you paid the labourers installing the solar panels in bitcoin.
i was envisioning that the solar panels done something bitcoin related.

i then envisioned that someone investing 1btc would eventually get back 2btc after 20 year lease.

but none of those are what you are doing.
you have yet to show how its a real bitcoin enabling proposal and not just a 'we accept bitcoin' payment method

something just didnt seem right.

i tried to keep my sceptical side away. and get you to re-evaluate your business plan as it just didnt seem right.
then when you kept replying. more things started to fall apart. where even now your limiting how involved you are in bitcoin by saying as soon as its handed to you its converted to fiat.

its just not sitting right. either you over emphasised bitcoins involvement instead of just saying "we accept bitcoin" or something is not right about the whole proposal

the reason your topic struck my attention was for the same reasons as the 'victorycoin' guy. i just dont politely introduce myself.

Wait, what?

From the OP:

Well you envisioned wrong then didn't you Franky! You can be skeptical all you wish, but the business plan is already being implemented and proving successful. One school solar electrified so far and now electrifying a tyre factory.

 The purpose of my OP wasnt actually to discuss the ins and outs of the business model but to open a discussion about how financing (solar) silicon chips with (mining) silicon chips is leading to a solid state economy - the solar bitcoin, to replace the petro-dollar. Many places in Africa don't yet have electricity, and the next project we are launching is to provide electricity to 800 individuals that upto now have been living on kerosene. They will get state of the art solar with storage micro-grids before ever been connected to a fossil fuel powered utility network. Rich Californians are whacking down big bucks for the transitioning to solar and storage. These rural communities will leap-frog straight to sustainable clean energy systems. Bitcoin is easier to manage than fiat for funding these projects so we ask our users to buy bitcoin to send us the payments instead of sending us fiat.

The sum must've already sat over the strawberry farm: https://thesunexchange.com/stellenbosch-waldorf-school-15kw-solar-pv-plant

https://i.imgur.com/TRYLgC7.png

^ here right here ^

thats what got my attention initially and peaked my interest
i THOUGHT your business was doing something revolutionary.. like paying installeres in bitcoin. letting the school earn bitcoin with the excess electric it doesnt use. where that electric 'revenue' was in bitcoin form to allow the school to spend locally and drive bitcoin as a usable currency in africa.

turns out as soon as bitcoin is sent.. its converted to fiat.. and ends up being just a fiat project that happens to accept bitcoin..
where the school never touches bitcoin.. and the initial american investor wont get his full bitcoin back in 20 years.

its like i thought i seen a spark of something useful.. but wanted to dig deep and test it out.
but the more i dug things fell apart.

all i see now is a fiat project that has a 'we accept bitcoin' payment method for convenience.
something just didnt seem right..

im guessing you were just overselling the sales pitch.

---

separate note:

only 8kw an hour. (based on 12 hours light)

Exceeded the forecast output for a 15kW solar plant in January for the area by about 10%. You can check using this solar PV estimation tool: http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php?map=africa Let me know if you need a hand using it.

only 8kw an hour. (based on 12 hours light)
[/quote]

Yes, but the newly built tires are spinning, connected to a generator creating even more power.

Sorry I don't have time to talk to you any more, people are sending Bitcoin to me to buy solar cells so that they can earn inflation beating returns whilst electrifying Africa. It keeps me busy. It has been emotional.

no problem

if only your project wasnt just converting bitcoin instantly to fiat. i would have thrown a few in your direction..
but my spidey sense was tingling too much.

lets hope next year you make a subsidiary where the african community get bitcoin for doing some part of your projects to get bitcoin circulating in africa... then my interest would peak without the spidey senses tingling. and start to see something really inspiring

Well in all our projects, we pay out in Bitcoin to people that pay in ZAR, so we are kind of a hybrid Bitcoin Exchange. Some 8 year olds at the school used their pocket money to invest in their own schools solar plant and they are now earning bitcoin income for the next 20 years. They will grow up with and using Bitcoin. Maybe that is more in the direction you envisaged. Or Maybe not. Good night.

I now get it! The banana company doesn't keep any bananas in its coffer, but accepts coconuts to pay out bananas (not kept in its coffer) to each and every banana company investor. How close and I? <forgive me if tires and strawberries would've been better examples>

The banana company wants to reduce its electricity running costs as it is paying Coal Power Inc. exorbitant amounts of money. Banana Company goes to The Sun Exchange and says:

 'Hello The Sun Exchange! We are a banana company, we don't want to be generating our own electricity, we need to use our money to grow and store bananas, it is what we are really good at! Otherwise we would use our money to build a solar array to save on energy bills. Can you, The Sun Exchange, raise funds for our solar array, and then we will give the money that we would of given to Coal Fire Inc to the people that paid for our solar array, provided they can give us a discount compared to what we are paying now?'

To which the Sun Exchange replies 'Sure we can! That is what we do!'.

Sceptical bystander A says, 'Hang on a minute, if banana company is so great, why don't they just go to the bank and take out a loan'?

To which The Sun Exchange replied, 'Oh don't you know? Debt is really expensive in Africa, and although sustainable development for Africa is a top international priority, global development banks are not lending to small and medium sized businesses in Africa as the projects are too small and they are really just interested in helping multinational corporates set up shop here as they are all in each others pockets. So The Sun Exchange has been set up to fill in this missing funding gap.'

Kind of less Sceptical bystander A nodded in agreement and added 'So if I bought some solar panels for banana company, what would be my equivalent rate of return?'  '10% IRR.', The Sun Exchange answered.

'10%IRR?' No longer Sceptical bystander A said, 'Why that is better than keeping my fiat money in a bank! And less risky than keeping my money in this Bitcoin thing that I don't really understand that well, that is brilliant'

Scepitcal bystander B buts in and says, 'Woah woah woah... hang on....  The Sun Exchange, you call yourself a Bitcoin company but you are just using Bitcoin as a payment system! That is not revolutionary! I smell something really fishy here!'.

To which The Sun Exchange tuts, lets our a little sigh and says 'We have done everything we can to tailor the buying experience for people that use Bitcoin, and we are encouraging its use so that the bitcoin ecosystem grows which is good for you if you invest in bitcoin. We offer live BTC price tracking during our crowd-sales to make sure BTC bids are reflective of their true value and we are working on some pretty cool features to increase visibility and autonomy on rental payouts that would be impossible with fiat. We believe that bitcoin is to the world of money what solar energy is to the world of energy.... distributed & democratic and by merging these two radical technological inventions together, we think we can make the world better and less reliant on fossil fuels and conventional banking systems. We know there is some awesome things that can be done with things like 21Coin chips for mining with surplus solar power, and we will implement those kinds of things when we are ready to do so. No one built Rome in a day. Now stop getting so stroppy at strangers and let us get on with doing stuff we love.'

I think that my banana and coconut analogy confused you, bud. On one hand you stated that no bitcoins are held by The Sun Exchange, they are immediately sold on digital currency exchanges, then followed up we pay out in Bitcoin to people that pay in ZAR, we = The Sun Exchange. So, if The Sun Exchange liquidates all its bitcoins as soon as they get them, how the hell does The Sun Exchange pay out bitcoins dividends to those who paid in ZAR or bananas or coconuts.

Apologies for the analogy I put forth earlier, forgetting how hot it can get there in Africa sometimes affecting the brain.

The electricity user pays The Sun Exchange either in Bitcoin, or, in ZAR which is then used to re-purchase Bitcoin through the partner digital currency exchange. Returns are pegged to ZAR not BTC. Not everyone in Bitcoin land Buys and Holds. It does have other uses.