Andrew Blakers, Australian National University
Last year, the world built more new solar capacity than every other power source combined.
Solar is now growing much faster than any other energy technology in history. How fast? Fast enough to completely displace fossil fuels from the entire global economy before 2050.
The rise and rise of cheap solar is our best hope for rapidly mitigating climate change.
Total solar capacity tipped over 1 terawatt (1,000 gigawatts) for the first time last year. The sector is growing at around 20% a year. If this continues, we’ll hit 6 terawatts around 2031. In capacity terms, that would be larger than the combined total of coal, gas, nuclear and hydro.
