I assume that his point was that blackouts and brownouts have limited impact on battery powered devices vs devices plugged directly into the grid, since you can smooth over patchy electricity access by running on battery during blackouts and charging during availability periods. This is why a lot of places with unreliable infra use UPSs with their computers, but if course that means an even higher capital cost to get your system up and running.
a) how common solar panels are (and how easy it is to partially repair broken solar panels)
b) how simple they are to make if efficiency doesn't matter (optional glas + conductive grid + any black isolator + aluminum foil will result in power delivered between the grid and the aluminum. Paper (even white laser printer paper frankly) will do fine as isolator, also I heard balloon plastic works very well. Of course a transparent conductor works way better than a grid (which is where 80% of the efficiency comes from), but it works at like 5-10% efficiency with a grid) (the optional glass is to keep it clean, you can of course also just clean it regularly)
c) how long batteries last if you only ever use 5% of their capability
> c) how long batteries last if you only ever use 5% of their capability
not very long if they're alkaline. And its doubtful anything but their phones got li-on batteries in ghana, the markup probably isn't worth it. And there probably are hardly any phones. so mostly no li-on batteries anywhere.
but i've never been there, just economically speaking.
I haven't been to Ghana, but I have been to Senegal, which is supposedly poorer.
Maybe a third of the people had a smartphone, most people had a basic phone. The smartphones were $100 Chinese Android things.
I felt perfectly safe wandering round with my 3 year old smartphone out, since I'd clearly taken less care of it than the average Senegalese would have.
