Solar energy is a renewable energy source in which it can generate clean and sustainable electricity without producing planet-warming greenhouse gas emission or toxic pollution in the process. As time is ticking before the world crosses the tipping point to limit global temperature increase under 1.5C, switching to renewable energy such as solar is now more crucial than ever. Here are 12 solar energy facts to help make the argument.
While solar energy can be dated all the way back in 700BC, it was not widely commercialised until about 40 years ago and accepted as a clean and effective alternative to fossil fuels. Though developing countries enjoy the advantage of being located in regions where they have optimal access to the sun''s rays, the lack of investment and climate debt means solar energy has been slow to grow in the region. Meanwhile, developed countries such as America, Australia, and more recently, China, have become the leaders in solar power generation.
Solar energy refers to light and heat radiation from the sun that is harnessed to generate electricity. While we scale up technologies across the globe to capture and convert solar energy, the Earth already receives it in spades. An hour and half''s worth of solar energy that reaches to the surface of the planet has enough power to meet all of humanity''s energy consumption for an entire year. Since the sun is not going away anytime soon, we have the ability and technology to depend on solar energy entirely and end the global use and consumption of fossil fuels.
In 2010, solar energy represented only 0.06% of the global energy mix. Within nine years, solar rose up to 1.11%. Solar also makes up the largest proportion of growth in the renewable energy mix, where it grew from 0.8% in 2010 to 10.3% in 2019. Solar power capacity is rapidly growing at the same time, meaning the amount of electricity it can generate from energy it captures. Global solar power rose by 22% in 2020 as installations have experienced a boom. Together with wind power, renewable output has more than doubled since 2015.
While the process of solar power generation does not emit any greenhouse gases, other stages of the life cycle do produce some, but minimal, emissions. This include the manufacture of solar cell and panel materials – primarily made of monocrystalline, polycrystalline, or thin film ("amorphous") silicon– transportation, installation, maintenance, and decommissioning and dismantlement. Most estimates of life-cycle emissions for photovoltaic (PV) solar cell systems are between 0.07 and 0.18 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour.
Power generation from solar PV in 2020 grew by a record 156 TWh to reach 921 TWh, marking 23% growth from 2019, and accounts for 3.1% of global electricity generation. China, one of the world''s top greenhouse gas emitters, alone was responsible for 75% of the increase in annual solar PV installations from 2019 to 2020.
Aside from solar PV cell systems, energy can be generated with solar power plants where panels within an infrastructure can last at least 40 years. Panels can be easily replaced and updated with new and more efficient modules at relatively low costs, ensuring a long lifespan of these power plants.
According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), for a solar power plant to provide electricity for 1,000 homes, the facility would require 32 acres of land. In other words, to meet the energy consumption needs of the US, the plant would require 18,734,500 acres to be used for solar plants, which is equivalent to 0.8% of the entire country. Aside from land use, solar thermal power plants require water use and hazardous materials can be dangerous if not disposed of correctly.
According to a 2020 report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), solar power is now the cheapest electricity in history. In most major countries, solar technology is also cheaper than coal and gas.
The Noor Complex solar power farm is the world''s largest concentrated solar power (CSP) plant located in the Sahara Desert in Morocco. Its geographical location allows for optimal access to sunlight and is said to have a 580-megawatt capacity and can provide electricity to more than one million people.
China installed the most new renewable energy capacity in 2021 and is expected to reach 1,200GW of wind and solar capacity in 2026, four years earlier than its target. By 2024, China will also likely register the largest installed residential solar capacity in the world. This growing trend contributes to China''s pledge to carbon peak by 2030 and to reach carbon neutrality by 2060. Unfortunately, the nation has also been increasing its coal use at the same time due to a recent energy crisis.
The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted the global economy in many ways, and the solar energy industry is expected to experience decline in growth due to rising costs in raw materials such as steel and aluminium, global supply chain bottlenecks, and elevated shipping costs from travel restrictions worldwide. Should this trend persists, this could deal a blow for countries to scale up solar energy production and capacity, forcing many to remain relying on fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.
Last on our list of solar energy facts is the futuristic, yet very likely possibility to build solar power stations in space. In 2020 European Space Agency (ESA) launched a campaign to collect new innovative ideas for technologies to increase the feasibility of space-based solar power to support the provision of clean energy and is now looking to fund some of these projects. Meanwhile, some prototypes are already underway in some countries.
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Our sun has been shining for over four and a half billion years. However, humans have only known about solar power since the 1830s, when Alexandre Edmond Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect. We don''t know why inventors always have such cool names, but we do know a slew of solar power facts—as it happens, we have 50 spotlighted below. Read on to learn about where in the world solar energy is the most popular, how solar energy impacts our health, how much solar panels cost, and much more.
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