China's solar panel manufacturing

This chart shows the level of Chinese solar panel manufacturing in 10,000 kW.  I have interpolated some gaps, particularly with respect to the usual Chinese practice of not publishing data for January and February separately, or at all.  I have seasonally and extreme-adjusted the time series.  These would be solar panels for both local use and exports.

It is plotted on a log scale because of its rapid growth.  It is up 17-fold since 2014, an annual average growth rate of 33% per annum since 2014.  Recently, the growth in output has been accelerating again, which is consistent with the very rapid growth in domestic installations.

Despite all the talk, developed countries didn't really believe in solar, and didn't support it enough.  (Ironically, Australia once led the world in solar, but the government decided to withdraw developmental subsidies, and the Chinese graduate student who'd helped develop solar in this country, returned to China to start theirs.)  

China decided to support the new technologies needed to fight climate change for three reasons.  

First, its coal-led growth had produced terrible, lethal pollution.   You could even see it from space.

Second, they knew climate change was real.  They had no rancid Right, to try and stop the revolution.  And no oil and coal companies to seduce politicians with bribes and poison the public debate with lies.

Third, it saw that these new technologies (wind, solar, lithium-ion batteries, and EVs) were going to be vastly important, and even though they were starting off small, they would grow fast, and would enable China to get rich.  They saw the future and they grabbed it.  

The West kept on believing that growth would be linear, not exponential.  (Many forecasts and projections continue to make this mistake.)   China supported these industries in early years with subsidies and directives.   This forced them down a rapid learning curve.  Cut-throat domestic competition forces the companies in these sectors to past the cost declines on to their customers, which in turn expands the markets.   That's called industrial policy.   It uses the learning curve to carve out new markets.  

End result:  China dominates, and these industries outside China are +-5 years behind, except perhaps for wind.   Chinese EVs, batteries, and solar panels are cheaper than the rest of the world, and only protectionism keeps other domestic markets safe.  

Have developed countries learned their lesson?  You have to wonder.  The US certainly hasn't.  I suspect that this is what Trump is dimly grasping at with his Trump tariffs.  But the Chinese have also made a point of training and educating their work force, and companies spend more than their profits on research to improve the technologies.  BYD is an excellent example.  And they also don't chop and change policies every five minutes.  

Will this kind of industrial policy work in other sectors in China?  Chinese technology firm, DeepSeek, seems to following the same government-driven development path, but for AI.   There was a time when I would have said, but would you trust a Chinese AI?  But would you trust an AI from the USA these days?  And yet, if you're Pakistan or Thailand or Indonesia, do you even care?

If you're a small or a poor economy--in other words, anyone outside the Big 8--it makes sense to buy these products from China.   They're cheap, and will raise your GDP and living standards, while cutting your emissions and your air pollution.  If you're one of the Big 8 economies, you need to spend heavily on promoting production of these technologies to catch up.  Or you might as well give up.  

Meanwhile, the US (the world's largest economy!), has stupidly decided to deal death blows to its own EV, battery and solar industries.  

There are lots of lessons here, but I doubt the West, still in thrall to neo-liberalism, still wedded to the belief that the market always knows best, will learn them.

Solar is king

From Our World in Data

 

In 2004, it took the world a year to add one gigawatt of solar capacity.  Now it takes a day.  By 2030, it will take 2 hours.

Note log scale.  With a log scale, constant rates of change show as a straight line.

Explosive growth in EV sales in Australia

I've been meaning to show a chart of EV sales in Australia for a while.  But I couldn't find timely data.  Now, The Driven is publishing monthly EV sales data, but just for this year, so far.  I've cobbled together monthly data for 2023 and 2022 and part of 2021, and before that I've used annual data.

Sales have risen from 10 a month at the beginning of 2012 to 10,000 a month in May 2024, an increase of two orders of magnitude in 12 years.   As it has been in other markets, that is a 50% annual rate of growth.   At that growth rate, even backward Australia will reach new sales EV saturation in 6 years.

True, there are incentives to buy EVs introduced over the last couple of years, and this will have lifted sales.  But those incentives won't go away for a while.  And meanwhile, battery costs have halved this year, and will halve again over the next 12 to 18 months; EV prices are going to continue to decline.  The charging network is growing every month.  More and more people are becoming familiar with EVs.  Sales are just going to continue to grow, fast.

Cars and light trucks cause 11% of Oz's emissions, and at current growth rates they will become the biggest contributor to total emissions by 2030.   EVs will be key to preventing that.

 The government is also pursuing "vehicle-to-grid/vehicle-to-house" (V2G/V2H) operations, which will allow EVs to help charge the grid when demand is high.  (Obviously, that will be done using price incentives rather than compulsion.)  An average EV has 60 kWh battery storage, and even if just 10% of that is used, it will still be enough to power your house overnight.  Our very high penetration of rooftop solar will make this option attractive to householders.  Your car will also be your house's battery. 

EVs and PHEVs now 18% of world car sales

From CleanTechnica

Global plugin vehicle registrations were up 25% in April 2024 compared to April 2023. There were 1.2 million registrations. BEVs were up by 14% YoY, while plugin hybrids jumped 51% YoY.

In the end, plugins represented 18% share of the overall auto market (12% BEV share alone). This means that the global automotive market remains in the Electric Disruption Zone.

Year to date, plugin electric vehicle market share was up by 1%, to 17% (11% BEV).

Full electric vehicles (BEVs) represented 65% of plugin registrations in April, pulling the year-to-date tally to 64% share.

Globally, BYD is now way ahead of Tesla with a 20.7% market share, compared with Tesla's 7.6% (though Tesla makes no plug-in hybrids).  Part of the reason for the slowing growth shown in the chart below is because Tesla's sales are going backwards.  Partly it's because EV sales in Europe have temporarily stopped growing, which in turn is partly due to Germany cancelling all EV buying incentives.    Over the last 12 months, Germany made up 27% of Europe's car registrations.  Over 2021 & 2022, Europe's EV/PHEV sales grew by 180%, so this slow-down is perhaps to be expected.  

The collapse in battery costs will drive EV costs lower, and sales will pick up.  Growth rates fell in 2019 and 2020, when China removed EV incentives and Covid lockdowns crushed sales, but they recovered strongly in 2021 and 2022.  EV/PHEV sales in China have already started to accelerate again, so I feel reasonably confident forecasting a 30% per annum growth rate for the next couple of years.   

 In 2017, when EV/PHEV sales were just 2% of global car sales, I forecast that EV/PHEV car sales would reach 40% of global car sales this year.  But Covid delayed that schedule by a couple of years.   And US and European tariffs on EVs and batteries will also slow the transition down some more.  We prolly won't reach 40% for another two and a half years (extrapolating a 30% per annum growth rate).  On the other hand, most analysts were forecasting much lower numbers, because they were extrapolating the trend linearly, instead of exponentially. 

For legacy car makers, this point is key: EV growth was exponential, and their puny forecasts meant they kept on scrambling to catch up.  BYD is the world's biggest EV/PHEV manufacturer.  It's just produced an EV costing less than US$10,000.  An EV this cheap will accelerate EV take up.  S-curves rule.   For me, I didn't allow for Covid.  I'll try harder next time.

For the first time, world plug-in sales exceed a million

N.B. log scale. 
Each tick mark on the vertical (y-) axis represents a doubling of sales,
which is happening more or less every 18 months.

From CleanTechnica

Global plugin vehicle registrations were up 51% in September 2022 compared to September 2021, reaching a record 1,040,000 units. This is the first time ever the world reaches one million plugin vehicle registrations in a month. Despite the USA and Europe not reaching record months in September, China made up for it. China was also supported by a long list of other markets at record heights, with the highlights being: Australia (8,000 units), South Korea (17,000), and … Japan (13,000)!

Yep, Japan is (finally!) warming up to EVs, in no small part thanks to the success of the kei car Nissan Sakura and its Mitsubishi sibling, the eK X EV. Another interesting trend: all of the previously record-breaking markets are located in the Asia-Pacific region….

With such a strong month in September, plugins represented 17% share of the overall auto market. Full electrics (BEVs) themselves reached 13% share of the market! And these numbers could have been even larger if the overall market had not been in its newfound recovery mode. That, added to the fact that plugless hybrids (HEVs) posted their highest growth rate since last January (+14% YoY), confirms once again the significant correlation between the HEV and pure ICE (internal combustion engine) markets.

In September, the BEV growth rate (+50% YoY) was slightly smaller than that of plugin hybrids (+54%), but if we exclude China from the plugin hybrid vehicle (PHEV) tally, we discover that PHEVs would be down for the seventh month in a row. So, excluding China, where PHEVs have evolved into 30–40+ kWh battery systems (working more as extended-range electric vehicles than classic PHEVs), plugin hybrids are still struggling.

Year to date, the plugin vehicle share grew to 13% (9.3% BEV). With the plugin market now consistently reaching two-digit results in market share, one can say that EV disruption in knocking on the global automotive market’s doors. Expect the floodgates to open next year!

World car/light truck sales hover around the 70 million per annum level.   If EV/PHEV sales remain at their current seasonally adjusted level of 900,000 per month, they will make up ±15% of global car sales.  However, they are in fact growing by 65% per annum (smoothed), which means that in a year's time, EVs/PHEVs could make up 25% of global car sales.  

Metcalfe's law

 

The London Underground is a dense, connected network, which makes it extraordinarily valuable
 to London and Southern England. 

From History-Computer

Metcalfe’s Law is one of the foundational principles of network economics. It suggests that as a network grows, its value grows much faster than its user base.

The idea behind Metcalfe’s Law is that, while a network’s cost generally grows as a direct proportion of its total number of nodes, its value grows in proportion to the square of that number. Network value grows fast because it’s related to the number of connections between nodes rather than the number of nodes. Metcalfe’s idea implies that node connectivity is the real source of utility in a network.

The word node comes from a Latin word that means knot. In this context, we use it to mean any endpoint in a network. Telephones, computers, train stations, or individual people can all act as nodes in different kinds of networks.

A network with 10 of these nodes might cost about 10 times the price of one node, but Metcalfe’s Law suggests that the network’s inherent value will be closer to 100 times the value of one node. If you add a node, the cost will jump to 11, but the value will jump to 121, the square of 11. In mathematical terms, network cost grows linearly, but network value seems to grow nonlinearly as an exponential function of the total number of nodes in the network.

Metcalfe’s Law isn’t a physical or perfect law of network value. Just like economics has the idea of supply and demand that works perfectly only under perfect conditions, Metcalfe’s idea of network effects is more of an approximation rather than an exact formula. It’s most useful as a conceptual model that you can use to think about network economics in general terms.

Metcalfe’s Law observes that any network’s value is a proportion of the square of the network’s total number of connected nodes.

The mechanics of Metcalfe’s Law are simple. If a network gains new nodes that can connect with all its existing nodes, then the amount of connections grows much quicker than the number of nodes. Every single new node adds as many connections to the network as there are existing nodes.

When Metcalfe first came up with the idea, he indicated that the formula for a network’s value worked best as an exponential function of its total number of nodes. He and other researchers like Bob Briscoe later scaled it back, calculating that the network value was closer to a logarithmic function of its number of nodes.

In 2013, data analysts from the Netherlands released a broad study of seven years of internet use across 33 European countries. They concluded that the growth patterns of smaller and newly launched networks do seem to follow Metcalfe’s exponential estimation. As a network grows, however, the growth of its value seems to taper off into a logarithmic rather than exponential function of its number of nodes.

Other recent studies involving data from the past decade from Facebook, Tencent, Bitcoin, and Ethereum networks also indicate that these networks seem to fit Metcalfe’s observation in their initial phases and then slow down as they reach widespread adoption.

The network effects of this value escalation tend to be both direct and indirect.  

We call network effects symmetric or direct when a node increase provides direct utility to the other nodes. We can see direct network effects in social networks like Twitter or Tinder, where additional users joining directly improves the user experience of the existing users, giving them the possibility of more followers or matches.

We call networks effects asymmetric or indirect when there is more than one type of node and a node increase provides indirect utility to other types of nodes. Indirect network effects show up in networks like Uber or Airbnb, where more drivers and hosts indirectly improve the experience of the riders and guests, and vice versa. Indirect effects often look like increased supply encouraging increased demand, which then encourages even more supply.

Metcalfe’s Law seems to work best when all the nodes in a network have equal value and provide equal benefit. Nodes with fewer connections are less valuable than highly connected nodes.

Many networks don’t match Metcalfe-style growth because some new nodes don’t create connections with all existing nodes. This can happen when, for instance, new users of a network speak different languages or have interests and expertise in areas that don’t overlap.

To estimate network effects accurately, we have to take into account not only the number of nodes but also the affinity between nodes. If a network’s cost per user is fixed and later users use the network less than the trailblazers, the newer users will be less valuable to the network, and the network will become less efficient.

While experts in network economics and computer science continue to battle over whether the correct formula for calculating network effects should be exponential, logarithmic, or some other function, Metcalfe’s general point is clear. A network’s overall value tends to grow much quicker than its size.

Metcalfe’s Law of network effects seems to have the strongest applications in these four main kinds of networks:

• Physical networks
• Protocol networks
• Personal networks
• Market networks

Physical networks are composed of physical nodes connected by physical links. These include electrical grids, roads, railroads, sewer systems, and broadband internet services.

Thanks to Metcalfe’s Law, it’s not uncommon to see these physical networks grow so powerful that they overwhelm smaller competing networks and turn into monopolies or duopolies. When that happens, governments tend to nationalize them and call them utilities.

Protocol networks are standards of use for digital or communications networks. They layout sets of rules for how nodes in a network must format and process data.

Nodes in protocol networks are generally digital devices rather than humans, so you can think of protocol networks as computer languages. Just like a human language, once a protocol network has been widely adopted, it’s nearly impossible to replace.

Ethernet is an example of a protocol network. When Metcalfe and Boggs came up with the Ethernet standard, other local area network protocols existed. Thanks to Metcalfe’s Law, however, the more market share Ethernet captured, the less valuable the competition became until it dwindled to almost nothing. More recent examples of protocol networks include Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies.

A network is considered personal when the nodes are people. Human nodes may be anonymous or may have their real identities tied to their usernames.

Personal networks generally grow when real-life people find value in them and influence their inner circles to join as well. When a large number of people who you like and respect are using a network, you’ll usually find a lot of value in joining it too.

Examples of personal networks include TikTok and Facebook.

Market networks take the identity-based format of personal networks and combine it with the transactional focus of marketplaces to facilitate mass transactions from many buyers and sellers. Instead of optimizing for quick transactions, market networks generally encourage long-term projects that allow users to improve their reputation with each successful purchase or sale.

Market networks provide value in both directions, from the sellers to the buyers, and vice versa. In double-sided systems like these, the value is derived from the network connectivity not from the specific system itself. Once a market network is established, the two sides tend to cement the network in place. To get users to move, you have to find a way to provide more value to both sides at once than what they’re getting from the existing network.

I'd never heard of Metcalfe's Law before I read this article, but I realise now that I'd always understood it without being aware of it.  

In particular, I thought of it as it applies to public transport networks.  Think of the extraordinary network of the London Tube, including the Underground, the Overground, the new Elizabeth line (Crossrail), the tram network, and mainline trains and airports, where almost every line connects with several other lines.  

In Victoria, the tram (light rail) and transit networks don't connect very well.  There are connections at the main downtown termini, but in the suburbs, because the tramways and railways were owned by different companies, their stops at the end of the line are sometimes far apart.  It has been suggested to the public transport authorities that tram lines should be extended to the nearest railway station to improve network connectivity.  Alas, this still hasn't happened.  Although the Labor government has committed to a new outer circle rail line, which will connect all the radial suburban branch lines.  Predicatbly, the LNP opposition doesn't want it.

Wind and solar reach 10.5% of global generation

From BNEF

The world’s wind and solar projects combined to meet more than a tenth of global electricity demand for the first time in 2021, according to research company BloombergNEF (BNEF). At the same time overall electricity demand, production from coal-fired power plants, and emissions all surged in 2021 as the global economy regained its footing following the Covid-19 pandemic.

With nearly 3,000 terawatt-hours of electricity produced, wind and solar accounted for a combined 10.5% of global 2021 generation, BNEF found in its annual Power Transition Trends report. Wind’s contribution to the global total rose to 6.8% while solar climbed to 3.7%. A decade ago, these two technologies combined accounted for well under 1% of total electricity production. In all, 39% of all power produced globally in 2021 was carbon free. Hydro and nuclear projects met just over one quarter of the world’s electricity needs.

Every year since 2017, wind and solar have accounted for the majority of new power-generating capacity added to global grids. In 2021, they hit a record three-quarters of the 364 gigawatts of new capacity built. Including hydro, nuclear and others, zero-carbon power accounted for 85% of all new capacity added.

“Renewables are now the default choice for most countries looking to add or even replace power-generating capacity,” said Luiza Demôro, head of energy transitions at BloombergNEF. “This is no longer due to mandates or subsidies, but simply because these technologies are more often the most cost-competitive.”

Solar continued to expand at a particularly fierce pace in 2021, both in terms of new capacity additions and new markets. Solar was half of all global capacity added, at 182 gigawatts. Its contribution to global grids topped 1,000 terawatt-hours for the first time. Solar has also become essentially ubiquitous. In nearly half of all countries tracked by BNEF where some capacity was added, solar was the top choice in terms of volume. At least 112 countries now have at least one megawatt of solar capacity installed.

If you extend the trend linearly, from 1% 10 years ago to 10.5% in 2021, then it will take 90 years for wind and solar to reach 100% of electricity output.  If, on the other hand, growth is exponential (it is―it's a classic S-curve) then it is possible that the 10-fold increase over the last decade could be repeated over the next.  Which would take wind and solar to 100% of electricity generation.  What actually happens will lie somewhere between the two extremes.  But think about it.  The percentage of total electricity output from wind and solar has been growing by 25% compound per annum.  Let's say this growth rate falls to 15% per annum.  Then 40% of total output will come from wind and solar by 2031.   Another 30% of power comes from other carbon-free sources (nuclear and hydro, mainly).  So by 2031 only 30% of electricity generation will come from fossil fuels.  And at that same growth rate, by 2035, 100% will be carbon-free.

There's still hope.  We may yet slow climate change.

Global EV car sales up 87% yoy in January

 [Latest data from CleanTechnica]

In January 2014, total global EV sales were 14,512.  In January 2022,  they were 603,007, which is a compound annual growth rate of 45%.    This growth rate was reduced by the stagnation in sales in 2019, when Chinese subsidies were substantially reduced.  Notice the December peak and the January/February slowdown.

Solar deployment to top one terawatt in 2022

 From IEEFA

Global solar installations could break the 1-terawatt mark in 2022, industry group SolarPower Europe said in its “Global Market Outlook” on July 21, despite rising raw-material costs that could create headwinds for the renewable energy industry. [ Offset by rises in fossil fuel prices: Coal price is up 3-fold over the last year; gas up 70%. ]

Capacity stood at 773.2 GW at the end of 2020 with the addition of 138.2 GW — a new record-high figure for annual installations, and 18% higher than the capacity added in 2019.

SolarPower Europe expects global solar capacity to pass 900 GW in 2021, 1.1 TW in 2022, 1.3 TW in 2023, 1.6 TW in 2024 and 1.8 TW in 2025. This would translate into new capacity additions of 163 GW in 2021, 203 GW in 2022, 225 GW in 2023, 239 GW in 2024 and 266 GW in 2025.

Under optimal conditions, the world could operate a solar fleet as large as 2.1 TW by the end of 2025, SolarPower Europe said.

China was the top solar market in 2020, adding 48.2 GW of new installations, followed by the U.S. with 19.2 GW, Vietnam with 11.6 GW, Japan with 8.2 GW and Australia with 5.1 GW.

[Selene Balasta]

Source: Wikipedia

The blue square shows the 2020 data.  Note that the long-term trend line is unchanged.   Log scale chart shows constant growth rate as a straight line.  Note more or less unchanged growth rate over 30 years.  Now that solar is so much cheaper than coal, there is no reason to expect the growth rate to fall.  Annual growth rate since 2010 is 22%, slightly less than doubling every 3 years.

Wind and solar heading for 100%

 From Bloomberg Green:

Three decades ago, the U.S. passed an infinitesimal milestone: solar and wind power generated one-tenth of one percent of the country’s electricity. It took 18 years, until 2008, for solar and wind to reach 1% of U.S. electricity. It took 12 years for solar and wind to increase by another factor of 10. In 2020, wind and solar generated 10.5% of U.S. electricity.

If this sounds a bit like a math exercise, that’s because it is. Anything growing at a compounded rate of nearly 18%, as U.S. wind and solar have done for the past three decades, will double in four years, then double again four years after that, then again four years after that, and so on.

It gets confusing to think in so many successive doublings, especially when they occur more than twice a decade. Better, then, to think in orders of magnitude—10ˣ.

[Read more here]

The annual compound growth rate since the percentage reached 1% has been 21%.  And if that growth rate continues, wind and solar will make up 100% of electricity generation by 2031.  There is no reason for growth to slow, and every reason for it to remain high, because wind and solar are much cheaper than new-build coal, and about the same as ts operating cost, and they are getting even cheaper, while at the same time, a new administration is intent on moving towards zero carbon. Of course, the growth rate will slow as the percentage approaches 100%, because that's how S-curves work.  And there will still be hydro as part of the mix.  Hydro accounts for  ~7% of electricity supply now.  But for the next few years, the transition will be very fast.

I remember arguing with someone 10 years ago.  He said that wind and solar were a tiny proportion of world electricity generation, and therefore it was irrelevant.  My thesis, for him, and anyone who would listen, is simple.  Exponential growth would lead to very rapid jumps in the penetration of renewables.  Which is what's happened, and will continue to happen.  And that same very rapid increase is happening in electric cars too.  What this implies is that coal and oil are both in decline, and that their decline will accelerate.

Wind & solar now 10% of global electricity

 From EMBER

This report shows evidence that wind and solar have quickly increased to become a major source of electricity in most countries in the world, and are successfully reducing coal burn throughout the world.

Ember’s new half-year analysis aggregates national electricity generation for 48 countries making up 83% of global electricity production. It builds on Ember’s annual Global Electricity Review, released in March 2020. 

Main findings:

• Wind and solar generation rose 14% in the first half of this year (H1-2020) compared to H1-2019, generating almost a tenth (9.8%) of global electricity. In the 48 countries analysed, wind and solar generation rose from 992 terawatt hours in 2019 to 1,129 terawatt hours in H1-2020. That meant wind and solar’s share of global electricity has risen from 8.1% in 2019 to 9.8% in H1-2020; and their share more than doubled from 4.6% in 2015, when the Paris Climate Agreement was signed. Wind and solar generated almost as much CO2-free power as nuclear power plants, which generated 10.5% of global electricity in H1-2020 and whose share remained unchanged from 2019.
• Many key countries now generate around a tenth of their electricity from wind and solar: China (10%), the US (12%), India (10%), Japan (10%), Brazil (10%) and Turkey (13%). The EU and UK were substantially higher with 21% and 33% respectively; within the EU, Germany rose to 42%. Russia is the largest country so far to shun wind and solar, with just 0.2% of its electricity from wind and solar.
• Global coal generation fell 8.3% in the first half of 2020, compared to H1-2019. This breaks a new record, following on from a year-on-year fall of 3% in 2019, which at the time was the biggest fall since at least 1990. The fall in H1-2020 is because electricity demand fell globally by 3.0% in H1-2020 due to COVID-19, as well as due to rising wind and solar. Although 70% of coal’s fall in H1-2020 can be attributed to lower electricity demand due to COVID-19, 30% can be attributed to increased wind and solar generation. The US and the EU are racing to reduce coal, with falls of 31% and 32% respectively. China’s coal fell only 2%, meaning its share of global coal generation rose to 54% so far this year, up from 50% in 2019 and 44% in 2015.
• Wind and solar have captured a five percentage points market share from coal since 2015. Coal’s share fell from 37.9% in 2015 to 33.0% in the first half of 2020, as wind and solar grew from 4.6% to 9.8%. India’s change was even more dramatic: wind and solar’s share rose from 3% of total generation in 2015 to 10% in the first half of 2020; at the same time, coal’s share fell from 77% to 68%. For the first time, the world’s coal fleet ran at less than half of its capacity this year.
• The global electricity transition is off-track for 1.5 degrees. Coal needs to fall by 13% every year this decade, and even in the face of a global pandemic coal generation has only reduced 8% in the first half of 2020. The IPCC’s 1.5 degree scenarios show coal needs to fall to just 6% of global generation by 2030, from 33% in H1-2020. The IPCC shows in all scenarios most of coal’s replacement is with wind and solar.

The question is whether wind and solar will grow exponentially or not.  The percentage from W&S has risen from 4.6% in 2015 to 9.8% in 2020, which is roughly 1% per year.  At that rate, it will take 38 years for coal to fall to zero (coal provided 38% of the world's electricity in 2018).   But if the percentage grows at the same rate as it did from 2015 to 2020, which is about 15% per annum, or doubling every 5 years, by 2025, wind and solar will make up 20% of global electricity generation.  By 2030, if growth is exponential, it will make up 40%, more than replacing coal.  

Why should growth be exponential not linear?

1. To date, since 1990, it has been, though the growth rate has slowed a little.  Why won't that continue?  It's a classic learning-curve.  As installations grow, costs fall, making installations grow even faster, and costs decline even faster.
2. Up until just a couple of years ago, renewables were more expensive than new-build coal, but now they are cheaper, and will go on getting even cheaper still.  In many places, the costs of new-build wind and solar are the same as or below the operating costs of coal.  There are powerful commercial reasons now to switch away from coal.
3. The EU's carbon price has risen sixfold over the last three years, as the EU has finally started tightening supply of permits.  There is very strong support within the  EU for imposing a carbon price on the embedded carbon in imports to the EU from countries which do not themselves have a carbon price.  No doubt there will be ructions and appeals to the WTO and possibly retaliation.  But the EU is making a sterling effort to reduce emissions.  If they don't price embedded carbon in imports, their carbon price will just lead to emissions being outsourced to countries (free riders) which don't tax carbon.  For example, an EU steel producer would be disadvantaged compared to a Chinese or Russian producer.  Applying a carbon price to imports, and exempting imports from countries which also have a carbon price will provide a powerful incentive for countries without a carbon tax to introduce one.  And these non-EU countries will apply it in turn to embedded carbon in their imports, creating a cascading shift to pricing carbon globally.  
4. So not only will renewables make inroads into coal because of the learning-curve cost declines as installations increase, but coal and oil and gas (at half the rate, but that may be too low) will increasingly pay a carbon price in addition to already unfavourable costs relative to renewables. 

Thus it seems very plausible to me that installations of wind and solar will continue to grow exponentially.  Which implies that coal will be more or less out of global electricity generation by 2030, followed by gas (unless it is synthetic natural gas, made via the Sabatier or similar process.)

Good news for the climate.

Source of basic data: IEA

Coronavirus's explosive growth

An excellent chart from John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times (or FT)

Note that the Y-axis is a logarithmic scale.  See how the number of cases goes from 200 to 20,000 in just 15 days.  Without action the number of new cases rises by 33% EVERY DAY.  At some point, emergency departments are overwhelmed and then the death rate will rise sharply too from 1% to 5% in the general population and from 5% in the over 60s to 25%.  When overwhelmed health systems have to choose between saving the life of an old person and of a young person they will choose the young person. 

This is a catastrophe, and the US is the advanced country most incapable of dealing with the crisis because of its health system and President Trump.  Note: because of too few testing kits, the number of US cases is prolly grossly understated. 

Scotland on path to 100% green electricity by 2020

Ardrossan wind farm.  Source: Wikipedia

From World Economic Forum:

So far this year, Scotland's wind turbines have produced almost double the amount of wind energy needed to power every household in Scotland, according to WWF.

As WWF explained in the report, between January and July of 2019, Scotland generated 9,831,320 megawatt hours (MWh) of wind energy, as per data recorded by WeatherEnergy. That's enough to power 182 percent of all 4.47 million Scottish homes, or nearly 100 percent of homes in both Scotland and the North of England. The new figures have set a new record for the country's wind power output.

“These are amazing figures, Scotland’s wind energy revolution is clearly continuing to power ahead. Up and down the country, we are all benefitting from cleaner energy and so is the climate," Robin Parker, WWF Scotland's Climate and Energy Policy Manager, said in a statement for WWF.

Alex Wilcox Brooke, Weather Energy Project Manager at Severn Wye Energy Agency, added that these statistics show how reliable wind energy can be. “These figures really highlight the consistency of wind energy in Scotland and why it now plays a major part in the U.K. energy market," Brooke told WWF.

Scotland is pretty forward-thinking when it comes to renewable energy. As detailed on Scotland's government website, the country has a goal of using renewable energy sources to provide 100 percent of Scotland's gross annual electricity by 2020. If Scotland accomplishes this goal, that would mean that beginning next year, Scots will not be using any fossil fuels to generate electricity.

When Scotland set that 2020 target, it also set an interim goal of powering 50 percent of its electricity with renewable energy by 2015.

Since achieving that interim goal in 2015, Scotland has continued to ramp up its dependency on renewable energy. The Independent called the country a "world leader" in renewable energy, and noted that in 2016, 54 percent of Scotland's electricity came from renewables, and in 2017, 68.1 percent came from renewables. And in 2018, 74.6 percent of Scotland's gross electricity came from renewable sources, according to Power Technology.

When a country at first starts to replace fossil fuels with renewables, the percentages seem to mount so slowly.  It's just 2% then 4% then 6%, and fossil fuels remain overwhelmingly important.  The task of getting to 100% seems overwhelming.  But then we reach a tipping point, where suddenly renewables are significant, and not long after that, it is fossil fuels which provide only small percentages of total generation. 

This is because of the effect of compound growth.  If renewables capacity is growing by 20% per annum, even if you start with just 5% of your electricity coming from renewables,  within 10 years it will have reached 30% and within 20, 100%.    The annual growth rate in renewables capacity is the key factor, eventually, even though at the beginning the transitions seems so slow.  Every country should commit to increasing their renewables capacity by 20% per annum.  Even if at the beginning that doesn't lead to big falls in emissions, within a few years, it will.

Remorseless cost reductions

From IEEFA:

Renewable energy will march forward this year, due to “remorseless reductions in the costs of solar and wind electricity and of lithium-ion batteries,” Angus McCrone, the chief editor of Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) wrote in a commentary.

Clean energy will also make huge strides because of the “widening realization on the part of investors and corporations that there is this ‘sustainability thing’ and, for reasons of self-interest, they just need to do it,” McCrone added.

Falling costs for wind and solar are great news, but they also make the headline investment figure appear less impressive. BNEF sees total clean energy investment hovering at around $300 billion, down from 2018’s $332.1 billion. But while investment totals will be down this year, as time marches on and costs continue to fall, every dollar invested brings more renewable energy capacity.

The same will be true in 2019. For instance, BNEF predicts that the world will add between 125 [+15%] and 141 gigawatts (GW) [+29%] of new solar this year, sharply up from the ~109 GW added in 2018. For wind, BNEF sees capacity additions of 70 GW [+31%]in 2019, up from 53.5 GW last year.

One notable development is the rise of offshore wind. It will still remain a fraction of the wind installation total, but “eye-catching price drops” will make it a “must-have” technology this year, BNEF analysts argue. Europe is set to install 4.9 GW of offshore wind, with Asia installing 3.5 GW – both new record highs. BNEF says this will be the last year that Europe leads in offshore wind. From here on out, Asia will take over as the global leader.

Energy storage hits a milestone in 2019 as well, adding 10 GWh of new capacity for the first time. China will “establish a truly global presence” in the energy storage market, with automakers increasingly seeking out Chinese suppliers. Average battery prices could fall below $150/kWh this year, down from $176/kWh last year, which itself was a record low.

[Read more here]

In this piece, I pointed out that to get to 100% green electricity by 2040, we needed the percentage of renewables in electricity generation to grow by 10% per annum, compounded, and to get to 100% by 2030, growth needed to be 20% per annum.

In 2017,  according to Wikipedia, total global solar capacity was 401.5 GW (my numbers are a couple of % higher), so capacity grew in 2018 by 27%, and will grow again in 2019 by 24% (at the lower end of BNEF's forecast) and by 27% (at the upper end).

Total wind capacity in 2017 was 539 GW, so this year's expansion will add 11.8% to its installed capacity.

Taking wind and solar capacity together, this year total (W+S) installed capacity should rise by about 18%.  Which means we are on our way to 100% green electricity by 2040.  In fact, an 18% growth in capacity every year from now on would get us there in 13 years, in 2032.

Also, for what it's worth, if the previous rate of decline in battery prices continues, battery costs this year should reach $141/kWh and $113/kWh in 2020, equivalent to $39/MWh and $31/MWh respectively for 24 hours of storage.  24 hours of storage will be quite sufficient to take us to 80 or 90% renewables on a grid powered by both wind and solar.  Most national and regional grids are quite some way from that level of penetration yet, but will reach it in 10 or 12 years, by which time battery cost will have fallen by 90% from today.

Global installed capacity charts are shown below, with 2019 forecasts included.  Note that they are plotted on a log scale, which shows as a straight line when there is a constant growth rate, whereas a linear scale shows as an ever steepening curve.  Total wind capacity has risen from 1.8 GW in 1989 to 662 GW in 2019 (forecast), and solar has risen from 1 GW in 2000 to 673 in 2019 (f'cast).   In recent years wind's growth has slowed from the 30% p.a. of early days to around 12% per annum (as can be seen from the flattening slope of the curve).  Solar's growth has remained at +-30% p.a..  If anything, growth is likely to accelerate as costs fall, and as batteries become cheap.

US EV sales up 120%, or, Tesla triumphs

In August, sales of EVs (electric vehicles) and PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) rose 120% over sales in August 2017.  Most of the jump is due to the Model 3.  Without Model 3 sales, total EV/PHEV sales would be up just 12.5% on last year.  In fact, 63% of August EV sales were from the three Tesla models.   In August, the Tesla Model 3 was the 5th biggest seller of ALL US cars, behind only the Toyota Camry, the Honda Civic, the Honda Accord and the Toyota Corolla Family.  Let that penetrate for a minute.  An electric car, from an upstart manufacturer, is the 5th bestselling car in the US.  And it doesn't even advertise.  And you have to wait months for it to be delivered.  And the MSM has been spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) about whether Tesla will survive, whether it's profitable, oh, and why doesn't Musk just give up?

I repeat: a car from a supposedly bankrupt company, with a months-long waiting list, with a new technology, and not cheap, is the 5th best selling car in America.  This must be giving legacy car manufacturers the heeby-jeebies.  What will happen when Tesla introduces the base Model 3, costing $35,000?  What will happen when Tesla expands its production lines, again?  What will happen when proud new owners give friends and family test drives in their new, beaut Model 3?  How long before the Model 3 is the best-selling car in America?  Will you still be buying oil stocks?  Will you still be holding legacy car company stocks?

I'm sure many of you think I've been far too optimistic about EVs.  Yet here we are, only half way through Tesla's model 3 ramp, and a year away from the Tesla Model Y and the Tesla pick-up truck.  And the Tesla Shanghai gigafactory.  Tesla is triumphing.   EVs are 2.5% of total car and light truck sales in the USA, double the percentage of just 12 months ago.  They will double again over the next 18 months and again in the 18 months after.  Or it might be, in the next 12 months and the 12 months after that.  The S-curve is flexing up.  

By 2026 or 7, EVs will be nearly 100% of total global car sales.  10 or 12 years later they will make up 95% of the world's car fleet.

Note steep acceleration.  

Percentage has more than doubled in one year! 
At this rate the percentage will reach 9% by the end of  2021,
36% by 2024.

Smoothed growth rate 90% year on year. 

Note logarithmic scale.  A straight line implies a constant growth rate

Percentage now the same as in the US

Growth slowing to a mere 55% per annum. 
Just about doubling every 18 months.  Will reach 100% penetration within 9 or 10 years.

➥  Source of basic data Inside EVs.  My seasonal adjustment and smoothing.  My charts.

EVs 100% of the market by 2025

I've been very optimistic on the take-up of electric vehicles (EVs).  I've based that optimism in general on the classic S-curve of technology adoption, and on the idea that growth is exponential not linear.  Something which doubles every 2 years, for example, can soon grow from very tiny to huge.  If EV sales double every 2 years, and they are now about 2.4% of total car sales globally, then in 2 years they will be 4.8%, in 4 years 9.6%, in 6 years 19.2%, in 8 years 38.4% and in 10 years 76.8%.  With that growth rate, EVs will make up 100% of total global car sales in 2029. 

I've found someone who is even more optimistic than I am about the uptake of EVs: Prof Ray Wills, a professor at the University of Western Australia.  And he's just revised his forecasts up because the numbers have been even better than even he thought:

China on track to top 1 million #ElectricVehicle sales this year
If so, my world #EVs projection for 2018 and beyond too low
Imagine that
Too low
More EVs faster than even I imagined
And I've imagined a few

(Source of quoted material and all charts: Ray Wills)

Prof Wills forecasts much higher EV sales than anybody else (even me!)

China is 1/3rd of the world's car market.  It has strong EV targets.  The growth rate isn't 50% per annum but 100%!  (NEV = new energy vehicles, mostly EVs or PHEVs, but including a few hydrogen celled vehicles)

His forecast is that by 2026 no more petrol- or diesel-driven vehicles (ICEVs) will be sold.  As I said above, my forecast is that that will happen only in 2029.

That rapid uptake of EVs will take time to be reflected in the world's car fleet, because the average car lasts longer than 10-12 years.  In poor countries, they're much older, for obvious reasons.

Using last year's EV growth forecasts--which will now have to be upgraded!--oil sales will fall a by 30 million barrels a day by 2040.  World oil production was 80 million barrels a day in 2016.   The oil price will collapse long before 2040, though.  The 2014 oil price collapse was caused by a mere 3 million barrels a day oversupply.  That oil price crash also caused a slow-down in the growth rate of EVs in the US, so a price plunge may also have that effect in future.  But that will just be a temporary blip.  EVs are much cheaper to run, far more fun to drive, smoother and quieter, and by 2022 or so, their sticker price will be the same as or below ICEVs.  Meanwhile, governments everywhere will be panicking about global warming and air pollution.  EVs are safe.

EV sales motoring

In the US, despite the reduced sales caused by the delayed introduction of the Tesla Model 3 and the new longer-range Nissan Leaf, EV/PHEV sales continue to rise, in absolute terms and as a percentage of total car sales.  With the Model 3 and the new Leaf, EV/PHEV sales in the US should more than double this year.

However, thanks to China's push to clean up its air, world EV/PHEV car sales are exploding.  Note how sales data show an exponential curve (arithmetic scale)

Plotted on a log scale, the percentage of EV/PHEV relative to total car sales is rising in a more or less straight line.

And the rate of growth in world EV sales is extraordinary: 80% year on year in December.  At 80% per annum growth EVs/PHEVs will make up 8% of sales by the end of 2019 and 14% by the end of 2020.  Even at a 50% growth rate, EVs/PHEVs will make up 8% of total car/light truck sales by the end of 2020.  This is a serious market.  If you are a car manufacturer, and you're not there, you face imminent extinction.  Which guarantees that every car maker of note will be there.  Which in turn guarantees high sales growth (plus of course battery prices halving over the next 3 years and halving again over the subsequent 3).  On any reasonable growth assumption, EVs/PHEVs will be 75% of world car sales by the end of 2025.

[As ever, source of EV/PHEV data is Inside EVs; my seasonal adjustment and smoothing; my graphics program]

Solar and wind taking over!

Solar and wind had the most new capacity of all generation types installed world wide in 2016.

Source: The Conversation

Note: that's capacity not output.  Applying reasonable capacity factors, we get these percentages of new output:

Coal's contribution to electricity supply is now the largest of all, even with a capacity factor of just 60% (most new coal plants are being built in India and China and their capacity factors are much lower than the theoretical limit of 90% because of burgeoning renewables supply.) Capacity factors in solar are creeping up, but you can't get away from the fact that the sun doesn't shine for half the day, and is low in the sky for a quarter.  Wind capacity factors are also lifting, with new turbines able to turn even at low speeds.

To stop global warming, we need to cease deployment of new coal power, and start retiring existing coal power stations. Gas is an OK gap-filler temporarily, until storage costs fall low enough.

However, the roll out of wind and solar is likely to be exponential rather than linear.  Wind and solar now contribute 5.5% of world electricity demand.  10 years ago they together provided 1% of total world  electricity demand.  Solar capacity has been doubling every 2 years since at least 2000 (a 40% per annum growth rate), wind every three (26% p.a. growth rate.)

Global electricity demand is growing by 3% p.a., and that ignores the roll-out of EVs.  In the US, EVs will add 1/3rd to electricity demand, in Europe less, because Europeans drive less than Americans.  China and India would be less than that now because of low car ownership, but that will rise over the next 25 to 30 years.  So let's assume that EVs add 33% to electricity demand over 20 years.  That's an additional 1.5% p.a., so world electricity demand will grow by 4.5% p.a.

Wind and solar are already cheaper than coal, and are getting even cheaper every year.  Assume solar continues to grow by 40% per annum, and wind by a more relaxed 16% per annum, because increasingly, utilities will prefer solar over wind.   On these assumptions, wind and solar would supply (very back of envelope calcs) 68% of total global electricity demand by 2028.  (Most of the rest will come from hydro, nuclear, etc.)

Note chart is using a log scale.  What the exponential model shows is that the ground gained by renewables is very slow in early years, but accelerates every year.  Over the next decade, the rise is huge, from 5.5% of total electricity to 55%.  In passing, I point out that my rough calcs suggest that incremental growth in renewables will exceed incremental growth in total global electricity demand in 2020.  That's when emissions will really start to fall.  That's just 3 years away.  So, optimism, anyone?

Log scale vs linear scale

These charts of electricity generation (not capacity) from wind are interesting.  I can't remember where this chart is from, so I can't give attribution.  And it's old--the data only go up to 2011.  Since then wind has continued its growth rate unabated.

The top chart shows generation from wind on a linear scale.  The bottom chart shows exactly the same data on a log scale.  On a log scale it's very close to a straight line, which means it has a steady (constant) growth rate.  And that constant growth rate is roughly a doubling every 3 years.  This year (2017) the output from wind will have quadrupled since 2011.  It has gone up by less in Europe, but that has been compensated for by rapid growth in the US and China.  And the slope in the line/growth rate is determined by cost declines.  It fact the growth causes the cost declines and the cost declines lead to growth, which is called a learning curve.

Initially in the switch to renewables, wind was favoured because it was cheaper than solar, especially (obviously) in high latitudes.  These days, solar PV is now cheaper than wind (again, except in high latitudes), and that gap is likely to widen in solar's favour, because solar costs are falling faster than wind costs.  So will wind be ditched in favour of solar?  I don't know.  The wind blows at night, when the sun doesn't shine. I've seen some analysis which suggests than even in daytime, wind is negatively correlated with solar, which is one reason why diversified sources of generation make it easier to stabilise the grid.  Solar is growing even faster than wind, doubling every 2 years, and I'm sure that will continue.

(See also Doublings)