Cheap solar and wind power set to supplant fossil fuels by 2050
Huge and ongoing falls in the cost of renewable energymean that it could replace fossil fuels for global electricity generation by 2035 and allow all energy production to emit zero carbon by 2050, according to a report.
The fossil fuel industry will be unable to compete with cheap wind and solar power, while millions of people in developing countries will have access for the first time to affordable and domestically produced electricity, according to the think tank Carbon Tracker.
The cost of solar power has fallen by an average of 18 per cent and wind power by 9 per cent a year since 2010, the report said.
The installed capacity of solar panels has increased by 39 per cent a year globally over the same period and wind turbines by 17 per cent.
However, wind and solar supply only about 3 per cent of total energy and 10 per cent of electricity.
In 2019, solar generated 0.7 petawatt hours (PWH) globally and wind 1.4 PWH, compared with annual electricity demand of 27 PWH and total energy demand of 65 PWH. A petawatt is a million gigawatts; 1 PWH is the amount of electricity Japan consumes annu
Kingsmill Bond
Carbon Tracker energy strategist ally or the equivalent energy produced annually by the world’s largest oilfield, Ghawar in Saudi Arabia.
The report said that assuming a growth rate of 15 per cent, solar and wind could generate all global electricity by the mid-2030s and provide all energy by 2050, as falling costs and technological advances overcome the challenges of powering energy-intensive industrial sectors such as steel and cement production. The authors argue that there is plenty of available land globally and note that the UK is tackling the political constraints of building solar and wind farms on land by planning to quadruple offshore wind farm capacity by 2030.
About 0.3 per cent of the world’s land – or 450,000 sq km out of 149 million sq km – would be needed to supply all energy needs via solar power, the report says. That is less than the land required for fossil-fuel energy generation today, which in the US alone is 126,000 sq km, 1.3 per cent of the country.
The report said that poor countries would be the greatest beneficiaries because they have the largest ratio of solar and wind potential to energy demand. Africa will become a ‘‘renewables superpower’’: the continent has 39 per cent of the world’s potential capacity for wind and solar.
Kingsmill Bond, Carbon Tracker’s energy strategist and the lead author of the report, said: ‘‘We are entering a new epoch, comparable to the industrial revolution. Energy will tumble in price and become available to millions more, particularly in low-income countries.
‘‘Geopolitics will be transformed as nations are freed from expensive imports of coal, oil and gas. Clean renewables will fight catastrophic climate change and free the planet from deadly pollution.’’
Harry Benham, a co-author of the report, said: ‘‘Each year we are fuelling the climate crisis by burning three million years of fossilised sunshine in [the form of] coal, oil and gas, while we use just 0.01 per cent of daily sunshine.’’
Piers Forster, director of the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds, said the projections seemed reasonable, but there were questions about the political and technical feasibility of building so much wind and solar capacity.
Mike Tholen, sustainability director for OGUK, which represents the UK offshore oil and gas industry, said: ‘‘ We would agree wind and solar have an increasingly key part to play – but we will still need a diverse energy mix to meet the range of applications in 21stcentury economies.’’
‘‘We are entering a new epoch, comparable to the industrial revolution. Energy will tumble in price and become available to millions more, particularly in low-income countries.’’