Ask HN: 3rd Week at FAANG and feeling imposter syndrome
39 points by HowDoesSound 1d ago 35 comments
Ask HN: What's the modern distributed data processing stack?
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Pakistan pulled off one of the fastest solar revolutions in the world
21 belter 6 5/2/2025, 12:12:57 AM cnn.com ↗
To be fair - the grid is already failing in Pakistan. Adding solar to the edge is only increasing resiliency.
But in countries with functioning grids, a flight to solar could cause the same sort of user-pay funding crisis that electric cars have done for gas taxes.
> The sharp depreciation of the Pakistani rupee combined with falling electricity demand — in part due to the rise in solar — have pushed electricity prices upward. Russia’s war in Ukraine added an extra layer of pressure as gas prices increased.
Pakistan's economy has been so bad for so many decades, no one wants to invest dollars into the country. The way the Pakistani government was able to set up power plants in the last decade was to give sovereign guarantees that investors will get fully paid back even if the power plant turns out to be economically unviable.
This means there is an agreed number in dollars that power plant investors get per year, whether the power plant sold 0 units or all possible units, and irrespective of the Rupee denominated price of electricity. They call it capacity charges.
So on this parameter alone it is in the interest of the Pakistani state to encourage demand as much as possible so power plants are used at full capacity. Unfortunately, there is a trade off. Many power plants are run on imported fossil fuels. So increased electricity demand places incredible strains on Pakistan's dollar reserves, which approached zero about 3 years ago. Similarly, fossil fuel price increase destroys the Pakistani economy, because something like 60% of imports are just fossil fuels.
Renewables cause similar problems in the short run, but hopefully in the long run they will be beneficial. Long run here means till after all the foreign power plant owners have been paid off in about 15 years.