Experts Outline Pathway for Generating Up to Ten Terawatts of Power from Sunlight by 2030

Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and their counterparts from similar institutes in Japan and Germany, along with researchers at universities and industry, assessed the recent trajectory of photovoltaics and outlined a potential worldwide pathway to produce a significant portion of the world’s electricity from solar power in the new Science paper, Terawatt-Scale Photovoltaics: Trajectories and Challenges.

Photovoltaics (PV) generated about 1 percent of the total electricity produced globally in 2015. The International Solar Alliance has set a target of having at least 3 terawatts – or 3,000 GW- of additional solar power capacity by 2030, up from the current installed capacity of 71 GW. But even the most optimistic projections have under-represented the actual deployment of PV over the last decade.

GA-SERI’s experts predict if these challenges can be overcome, 5-10 terawatts of PV capacity could be in place by 2030:

  • continued reduction in the cost of PV while improving the performance of solar module
  •  drop in the cost of and time required to expand manufacturing and installation capacity
  •  move to more flexible grids that can handle high levels of PV through increased load shifting, energy storage, or transmission
  •  increase in demand for electricity by using more for transportation and heating or cooling
  • Continued progress in storage for energy generated by solar power.

Reaching that figure should be achievable through continued technology improvements  according to the Science paper, which in addition to Haegel was co-authored by David Feldman, Robert Margolis, William Tumas, Gregory Wilson, Michael Woodhouse, and Sarah Kurtz of NREL


Image Source: NREL

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