Chapter 876 Solar Energy for Home Use
It is also because after the EU launches the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the European economy will bottom out and begin to recover, so the capital and companies controlled by Barron will continue to expand their investments in Europe.
This includes Cavendish Asset Management, which entered the German real estate rental market by acquiring Eurobank's previous non-performing assets involving real estate mortgages after the subprime mortgage crisis.
And Argos Retail Group will continue to improve its sales network in Western Europe and cover the entire Europe with their services.
Especially in countries where the economic situation in Europe is not good, such as Greece, Ireland, Spain and other countries, Argos Retail Group has also developed well.
After all, through Argos' increasingly perfect supplier system in China and West Africa, many of their self-operated brand products have very high cost performance in Europe.
Especially for small appliances on Argos.com, because the holding company of Argos Retail Group is the holding party of Supor, this Chinese company has received all-round support from their technology, funds and sales channels, and has developed very fast.
Initially, Supor's small appliances were sold in the European market under the name of Argos' own brand. Now their Supor brand is also well-known in Europe, and sales are increasing year by year.
Not only did Supor enter the European market through the Argos retail group, but its small appliances are also popular in Africa, especially in West Africa.
As we all know, the biggest obstacle to the popularization of electrical appliances in Africa is not their low income, but the deployment of power facilities in many areas there.
After all, low income can also choose cheap electrical appliances, but if there is no electricity, then even if you buy electrical appliances, they can only be used as decorations.
China also achieved electricity access in every household after achieving electricity access in every township in 1987 and successfully solving the problem of the last household without electricity in 2006.
Even in South Africa, the country with the highest power generation in Africa, there were still 3 million people without electricity in 2011, and this is still the situation of being called a "developed country".
In the original time and space, only 10% of the population in Africa had access to electricity until 2020...
Even in Kolo, which is known as the "Kuwait of West Africa" because it has the best port in West Africa and abundant offshore oil and gas resources, the government funds are relatively abundant and it continues to invest in infrastructure, but according to relevant statistics, more than 30% of households still do not have access to electricity.
The areas where these families live are relatively remote, and the economic benefits of setting up power plants and distribution networks in the local area are extremely low.
For this reason, the West African Group cooperated with the Kolo government to carry out the "Solar Energy to Home" plan.
The West African Electric Company was jointly funded by the West African Group and the Kolo Industrial Investment Fund. West African Electric cooperated with relevant Chinese companies to install solar panels and power storage systems for Kolo families who have not yet been electrified at a relatively low price.
The reason why West African Electric can complete this work at a relatively low price is that the Kolo government will provide subsidies for the installation of each household's solar power generation system...
In addition, most of the solar panels installed by West African Electric come from China - they are "second-hand" panels disassembled and shipped from China.
From a very early time, China has formulated policies to support the development of domestic photovoltaic power generation - in the beginning, due to backward technology, the photovoltaic solar panels produced by China were slightly backward compared to the West.
However, with the development of Chinese companies in this field, the scale of its photovoltaic industry is also growing rapidly, and its technology has gradually caught up with and surpassed the West, with cost reduction and product replacement speed accelerating.
In Barron's previous life, he had seen a data that from 2007 to 2017, the cost of photovoltaic power generation in China fell by more than 90%!
And since 2012, China's new photovoltaic installations have ranked first in the world.
During this process, many of the photovoltaic solar panels that were initially used in China have begun to be replaced and upgraded. After all, there are products with lower costs and higher conversion rates.
What West Africa Electric did was to buy the solar panels that they had eliminated from China at a very low price and transport them to Kolo, and then install them in those families.
Although the conversion rate of these solar panels is much lower than that of current products, they can still generate solar power. The key is that as second-hand products that have been eliminated, the price is very low - after all, the recycling technology of solar panels is not perfect now, so it is better to sell them at a low price.
During this process, West Africa Electric cooperated with some Chinese companies, who helped "recycle" solar panels in China, and then transported them to Kolo, where West Africa Electric installed and deployed them.
Among them, the earliest company to cooperate with West Africa Electric was Supor - what they valued was the vast undeveloped market in Africa.
It’s not that Africans don’t have a need for electrical appliances, it’s just that most families didn’t have the pain points before…
Now that West Africa Electric has helped these families install photovoltaic power generation systems, we can then sell some “cost-effective” Chinese electrical appliances and small appliances here.
After proving that such an operation could be successful, not only Supor, but many other Chinese companies also participated.
At the same time, West Africa Electric has become one of the largest sales channels for Chinese home appliances in Kolo.
And not limited to Kolo, West Africa Electric has cooperated with the Prosperous Earth Foundation and has begun to carry out such projects to install home photovoltaic power generation systems at relatively low prices in the "West African Free Trade Zone" countries around Kolo, such as Ghana, Benin, and Burkina Faso.
It also made West Africa Electric the largest Chinese home appliance dealer in West Africa, bringing these families Chinese home appliances with great price advantages - this is a bit like the African version of the "home appliances going to the countryside" activity.
In addition, the previous idea of building a nuclear power plant in Kolo was temporarily shelved after evaluation.
Because although the power generation of nuclear power plants is considerable, the investment is huge, and the maintenance after completion also has certain risks - especially after the Fukushima nuclear power plant leak in Japan last year, the world began to re-examine the safety of nuclear power plants, including Nigeria, Britain and many other countries' nuclear power projects have begun to be re-evaluated.
More importantly, according to current technology, the cost of power generation from nuclear power plants is not low, much higher than that of traditional power plants - of course, compared to photovoltaic power generation, the cost of power generation from nuclear power plants is still advantageous.
However, with the reduction in the cost of photovoltaic power generation in recent years, it is not long before the cost of photovoltaic power generation can be predicted to fall below the cost of nuclear power generation.
In this case, given the latitude of Kolo, its solar energy resources are also very rich, so it is better to vigorously build photovoltaic power stations in the future - the United Energy Group itself has photovoltaic power generation research centers in Britain and Saudi Arabia, and has already achieved some results that can be applied to this.
It is worth mentioning that the mainstream of global photovoltaic power generation is still silicon-based solar power generation technology, accounting for more than 80% of the total global photovoltaic power generation.
The United Energy Group is currently mainly researching concentrated photovoltaic power generation.
