From Kees van der Leun
After decades of solar PV deployment, the world crossed the 1 TW (a million MW) line in 2022. Just two years later, after adding 0.6 TW in 2024, we already crossed the 2 TW mark too!
#SolarPV #solarenergy #renewables
It took 22 years for cumulative solar installed to reach 1 terawatt. It took just 2 years for the next terawatt. And I expect over the next 2 years, another 2 terawatts of solar will be installed. Total cumulated solar is doubling every two years.
Why? First, solar continues to plunge in price. Second, how much solar you could have in your grid was limited because there's no solar at night. But with storage costs plunging, that's less and less of a constraint. Solar farms are already routinely built with 4 hours of co-located storage. In a couple of years, that will be 8 hours.
Note: this is not new solar installed each year, though that is also growing exponentially. It is the cumulative total of all solar panels installed.
Electricity generation is going to transition to zero carbon much faster than even I, an optimist, have been thinking.
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