Exponential growth of solar power will change the world

An energy-rich future is within reach. Within 10 years, solar cells will be the single biggest source of electrical power on the planet, with the cost of electricity about half of today’s current rates.

The Iola Register’s rooftop solar panels. In 10 years’ time it’s predicted solar energy will power a majority of the world’s electrical needs. Photo by Paul Porter of Big Square Media. Register file photo

by The Economist

Published: June 20, 2024

| Preferred source

An energy-rich future is within reach. Within 10 years, solar cells will be the single biggest source of electrical power on the planet, with the cost of electricity about half of today’s current rates.

It is 70 years since AT&T’s Bell Labs unveiled a new technology for turning sunlight into power. The phone company hoped it could replace the batteries that run equipment in out-of-the-way places.

It also realized that powering devices with light alone showed how science could make the future seem wonderful; hence a press event at which sunshine kept a toy Ferris wheel spinning round and round.

Today solar power is long past the toy phase. Panels now provide the world with about 6% of its electricity — which is almost three times as much electrical energy as America consumed back in 1954. Yet this historic growth is only the second-most-remarkable thing about the rise of solar power. The most remarkable is that it is nowhere near over.

Already a subscriber?