Solar power has won. Or at least – if its current trajectory continues – it will begin usurping oil as the energy source of choice within a few short years. But will the current trajectory continue? And surely oil isn’t going to go down without a fight, is it? PES investigates.
Solar power has won the power struggle. PV energy is already so cheap that it competes with oil, diesel and natural gas in parts of Asia without subsidies. And bear in mind that roughly 29 per cent of electricity capacity added in America last year came from solar, rising to as much as 100 per cent in states such as Massachusetts and Vermont. “More solar has been installed in the US in the past 18 months than in 30 years,” says the US Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).
Solar simply isn’t competing with renewables any more. It’s edged into traditional energy marketplaces, having finally seen off the ‘threat’ posed by wind and hydropower. Clean Energy Trends says new solar installations overtook wind turbines worldwide last year with an extra 36.5GW (China alone made up a third of this explosive growth). Wind is still ahead with 2.5 times old capacity but we’re just seven years away from a major tipping point in 2021 as photovoltaic (PV) costs keep falling.
The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory says scientists can now capture 31.1pc of the sun’s energy with a 111-V Solar Cell, a world record that will soon be beaten again, no doubt. MIT are also making huge strides (see panel). This technology will find its way briskly into routine use and like Moore’s Law in computing, the leaps forward will continue apace. Wind cannot keep pace. It is standing still by comparison – a regional niche, perhaps.
The technology is improving so quickly – helped in no small part by the US military – that it has achieved a seemingly impenetrable status. Michael Parker and Flora Chang, at Sanford Bernstein, say we entering a new order of “global energy deflation” that will erode the viability of oil, gas and the fossil fuel nexus over time.
