{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"6dfd053e-a721-41da-a147-63bee43ea5ea","title":"Fully Automated Luxury Communism A Manifesto","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781786632623","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"6dfd053e-a721-41da-a147-63bee43ea5ea","id":"6dfd053e-a721-41da-a147-63bee43ea5ea","uuid":"6dfd053e-a721-41da-a147-63bee43ea5ea","title":"Fully Automated Luxury Communism A Manifesto","normalized_title":"fullyautomatedluxurycommunismamanifesto","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781786632623","isbns":["9781786632623","9781788732468","9781786632654","9781786632647"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":288,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/6dfd053e-a721-41da-a147-63bee43ea5ea","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Fully%20Automated%20Luxury%20Communism%20A%20Manifesto","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/6dfd053e-a721-41da-a147-63bee43ea5ea/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/6dfd053e-a721-41da-a147-63bee43ea5ea/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/6dfd053e-a721-41da-a147-63bee43ea5ea","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/6dfd053e-a721-41da-a147-63bee43ea5ea/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/6dfd053e-a721-41da-a147-63bee43ea5ea/search"},"page":{"printed_page":109,"pdf_page":118,"physical_index":118,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"a5cb4e9430ab85aa5b29b3486b34f2debb0387d3209bba372d739363b5d51726"},"chapter":"Fully Automated Luxury Communism","content":"It’s no surprise, then, that a new generation of businesses are looking to cash in on the convergence between rising electricity demand and declining costs for solar. One is M-Kopa, an American startup launched in Kenya in 2011. Today the company has half a million pay-as-you-go customers generating their own solar energy. The company’s model is straightforward and, perhaps rather predictably, resembles the kind of contract associated with mobile phones. Customers pay a deposit of KES 3,500 (approximately \\$35) to take the system home and then a further KES 50 (\\$0.50) a day for a year before owning the system outright. Daily payments are made through M-Pesa, a mobile phone–based money system. Consumer renewable energy paid for by cashless, digital payments – the reality of African energy in the early twenty-first century.\n\nOfering their products through a network of licensed dealers across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, the company’s latest ‘M-Kopa 4’ package ofers an eight-watt solar panel that charges appliances through USB ports, as well as two LED bulbs with light switches, a rechargeable LED torch and a radio.\n\nOne of M-Kopa’s competitors is d.light, who boast ofices in California, Kenya, China and India. They claim to have sold more than 12 million solar light and power products across sixty-two countries, the aim being to provide cheap, solar-powered electricity to 100 million people by 2020.\n\nAnother operator in the field is Of-Grid, whose model is similar to that of M-Kopa, the company providing the financing as well as the infrastructure to consumers. In Tanzania customers pay a deposit of around thirteen dollars to buy Of-Grid’s cheapest starter kit: a panel, a battery, a few LED lights, a phone charger and a radio. They proceed to pay approximately eight dollars a month for three years, after which they own the products. Of-Grid’s most popular bundle – for about twice the monthly price and a larger down payment – includes a few more lights and a flat-screen TV. As with M-Kopa, customers pay their bill by phone. All of this is made possible by the experience curve in solar cell and lithium-ion technology – as was the case with mobile phones over the last two decades – and it represents only the beginning for extreme supply in energy.\n\nLimitless Power\n\n109","previous_page":108,"next_page":110}