Why solar will soon dominate & what that means for the world

Further reading mentioned in video:

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SOURCES:
I've linked my sources in the blog that goes along with this video. Links are in the text.

Timestamps:
0:00 - intro
1:17 - how it happened
5:58 - what is next?
9:17 - global impact

Attribution:
Thank you to AP Archive for access to their archival footage.
Stock footage and others clips by Getty

Narrated and produced by Dr. Joeri Schasfoort
Edited by Chris Adewole

[VladyVeselinov]

Man I really love when you make optimistic videos, they really help the seasonal depression

[oxsameer]

I live in Pakistan. A lot of home and businesses are installing solar panels on their roofs. My home has 10KW solar setup as well.

[sambojinbojin-sam]

Cheers to the comments section! For once, it's actually a really good read, and almost as interesting as the video itself.

[augustus]

I have a MSc in renewable energy and I am so excited that I can provide some additional insights which I usually can't with Joeri's video's! I love the positive things mentioned in the video, but there's some nuances here that are worth mentioning.

1. Though the *cost of production* from solar-PV is negligible, the fact is that energy prices will *rise* in the near future. The reason for that is the cost for managing the electricity grid outpacing the reduction in production prices for solar-PV. Joeri rightly mentions the lower prices for battery systems, but this is a long-term solution and grid-congestion costs my country (Netherlands) *1-4% of annual GDP per year* because we neglected our energy-infrastructure for decades (like the US has until Biden). We can't add any more supply or demand to our energy grid.

2. Solar power is *intermittent* meaning there is a disconnect between peak-production and peak-consumption, whereas fossil-powered electricity is real-time. Africa and Asian nations can indeed use solar to meet some of their energy needs but effectively managing a Solar-PV based energy system requires smart-grid implementations, storage capacity and real-time monitoring, which just isn't financially feasible in a country like Indonesia or Nigeria.

3. You mention Chinese-made solar-PV as a supplement to Russian gas, this isn't necessarily true. Solar panels produce energy for longer but natural gas is used for non-electric processes and for these processes we cannot supplement gas with electricity.
For example: There's a particular problem with the decarbonisation of industry, which is my job.
Industry requires high-temperature heating which is not feasible with electricity. I know there are examples of industrial heat being delivered with electric means but trust me when I say that it isn't generally feasible to electrify manufacturing and other industry.

Therefore, solar will be a big portion of the energy-mix, but we need other forms of energy (fuels) that aren't electric. This either means advanced biofuels or hydrogen, the latter necessitating a large amount of freshwater to produce.

Love the video!! Thanks for dissecting this information, we need to embrace the energy transition because it makes sense, but I would say we should have a MUCH more balanced prioritisation between the *production* of renewable energy and *energy-infrastructure* because the power grid is just as important and again costs the Dutch economy €10-40 billion/year so there is also an economic necessity.

[ashishpatel]

It's cheap the only lacking thing is energy storage with batteries etc that's the next leap forward

[davechapman]

I got an MS in Photovoltaic Technology in 1982.
Right around that time, Reagan and the Saudis made a deal to push down the price of oil, which created the first "Solar Winter".
It sure has taken a while to get to the point of "Solar is Taking Over the Energy Market".
Worth the wait.

[aurelspecker]

The bottleneck of Solar installations are not the panels anymore, but skilled installers and grid management. This can be overcome, but not exponentially.

[madtechnocrat]

Truth is, healthy people are more productive.
So breathing less toxic air not only improves economy,
but also drives down costs of healthcare for a country.

[kiae-nirodiariesencore]

Bonjour et merci from a fellow Economist reader in France. I started subscribing back in the 1980s and have taken the newspaper ever since. You reference 'The Long Goodbye' which together with 'Sun Machines' are deep dives on how we got to where we are today, current trends and likely outcomes going forward. Most people just don't realise how disruptive those innocent looking little black panels are. It took decades for solar to get to 1% of global electricity in 2016 since when it has grown exponentially and reached 6% last year and more tellingly perhaps 1% of global primary energy. There is no shortage of raw materials and no shortage of places to put the panels, so expect solar to overtake all other forms of energy generation by the early 2030's, coal included and be providing 10% of global primary energy. Well summarised video!

[falafelscobes]

Australia has over 25GW of rooftop solar installed, 4 million households. 3.15GW installed last year. It’s three times cheaper to install solar in Australia as opposed to USA or Canada. Once we get storage sorted out, we’ll be sweet.

[philsburydoboy]

I work in grid scale battery storage and my team developed the best trading system for power in ERCOT (Texas). Texas is the second largest battery market on earth, will become the largest in ~1 year, and is the most “free market” for batteries (we are mostly unsubsidized). There are a lot of barriers for batteries to replace thermal generators.

First, they need to be able to operate overnight at roughly 2/3 the rate of the solar. This means a duration of ~16 to 20 hour durations in regions like Europe or the northern US. Most batteries are 2h systems, and once you go beyond 4h it becomes cheaper to just build natural gas (unless you’re in California where NG is penalized and batteries are subsidized). This transition can be smoothed by maintaining existing gen, but eventually costs either need to fall ~10x or a new 10x more cost efficient technology must be developed.

Cost efficient batteries are often NOT power efficient. This means that they consume 2-4x more power than they produce (lithium ion systems consume about 1.15x). This means you’ll need 6-12x more solar to cover your overnight power needs. So again, you need a 10x improvement in cost or technology. This doesn’t even account for the transmission issues and infrastructure costs that would come from these gigantic daily fluctuations in solar productivity.

Finally, there is a reliability issue. You really need to double or triple all of those battery durations to maintain a reliable grid in the event of major weather and transmission issues.

With all this in mind, the cost of installing scrubbers and other fossil fuel cleaning systems starts to become attractive compared to solar/batteries when capacity exceeds peak demand. Even developing new nuclear capacity is vastly cheaper than overnight solar.

This isn’t to say that solar is bad. It is wonderful for consumers and grid stability up to a point. There is a limit however, storing solar power for overnight use or for a true green transition is ridiculous without a massive (20x or more) technological advancement. With lithium ion, the cost of raw materials (not including lithium) is too high for even a 5x reduction to occur without a revolutionary breakthrough.

[ADHJkvsNgsMBbTQe]

In 1969 I put together a crystal radio kit from Radio Shack that included a small photovoltaic cell. I realized the moment I turned it on for the first time what the future could be. I am so glad to see it finally happening.

[golagiswatchingyou]

solar, hydro and nuclear seem like the best potentials for near infinite energy, seeing the development of these sources of energy rise and become cheaper and more advanced is a good thing for everyone, a glimmer of hope in our current age of uncertainty.

[t.miller]

It's an often overlooked fact that the development of the Global South is going to bring so much prosperity to the rest of the world too. Just imagine how much the world would be a better place if Africa, Asia and South America had the same easy access to clean energy as us.

[Jumper]

Also there is the point that solar is the most easily democratized form of generation.

So in regions where the grid oligopoly does not have enough control to block it, you have residential, business and community solar projects adding significantly to the deployment numbers. Small capital outlay to supplement small end users, not waiting for mega projects and capital investment.

[XxSliMoO]

Way back in 2014 Tony Seba predicted the clean disruption that solar would make fossil fuels obsolete by 2030. Good work Tony!

[alexeypilipenko]

One missing piece was agrophotovoltaics.
In a favorable circumstances combining solar with agriculture may be a pure win-win (and otherwise reasonable trade-off is still possible).

[christianlibertarian]

I have observed from both personal experience with solar and California’s experience that when you hit roughly 1/3 solar in total electricity production, an inflection point exists. That is because solar doesn’t produce at times of highest demand—the well known “duck curve”. At that point, storage is required, which has an entirely different cost structure than straight production. Australia is near that point. In California, they “solve” this problem by selling to other states. Australia doesn’t have this option, so it will be interesting to see how they progress.

[Ryukachoo]

7:00
The impact of this is hugely slept on
A lot of developing nations are poised to completely leapfrog centralizes electricity and have more energy than they ever thought feasible. The quality of life improvements from this are gonna be gigantic

[pepeteperez]

Spain is producing 59, 8% of the total electricity in 2024 using renewable energy. Objective for 2030 is 70%. We are in track to do even better.