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Global solar installations could rise five-fold by 2038
20/7/2022
News
Global solar installations are on a roll, according to new analysis from Rethink Energy, and could reach 200 GW in 2022.
Furthermore, as governments, utilities and renewables firms realise that not only are renewables already the cheapest way to generate electricity, and will get increasingly cheaper, the emergence of battery energy storage makes solar a more predictable resource, adds the report.
The study introduces the concept of ‘rooftop capacity per capita’ and forecasts that countries such as Poland, Italy, China, the US, Vietnam and even the Netherlands, will begin to chase the leader Australia in GW of rooftop solar installed per million inhabitants.
Solar is also expected to be at the centre of the green hydrogen sector, which the market analyst says ‘will build momentum through to 2030 and then absorb a staggering amount of cheap electricity into the electrolysis process, mostly from cheap solar megaprojects in Australia, North Africa, the Middle East and throughout China and the Americas, including irradiation hotspots like Chile’.
The scale of the growth in annual additions will be huge, some 14.35% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) each year through to 2030, before falling back to a more modest 9.7% CAGR through to 2040, predicts Rethink Energy.
However, there will be considerable associated ‘growing pains’, with problems finding and funding sufficient polysilicon, and even more problems wresting dominance of the industry away from China.
New forms of solar will also emerge, as PERC (passivated emitter and rear contact) solar technology gives way to TOPCON (tunnel oxide passivated contacts), which in turn gives way to heterojunction and tandem designs, and finally perovskite comes of age.
This will happen in the next 30 years, says the report. At the same time, new superpowers in solar irradiation will come onto the scene, and places like Chile and Australia will build giant energy export businesses based on the power of both solar and wind.
Global annual solar additions are forecast to reach 625 GW in 2030, and peak at just over 1,000 GW in 2040, before sliding back to a mostly replacement business in the run up to 2050.
The report, which provides country breakdowns of 22.9 TW of solar by 2050, also introduces a formula for calculating when solar repowering might happen, highlighting the relationship between module manufacture and annual additions.
