What a solar future for photovoltaics! But the road is not all smooth

So far the remarkable expansion of the renewables it has been in the world incomplete and did not solve the climate emergency as it emerged from World Energy Outlook 2019 of the International Energy Agency (IEA, International Energy Agency).

However, the potential clean energy (and efficiency measures) is still very broad and allows you to trace a scenario of drastic reduction of emissions pollutants in the coming decades.

In particular, a recent study by the "relative" agency of the IEA, specialized in the analysis of "green" technologies (IRENA, International Renewable Energy Agency), Future of Solar Photovoltaic (attachment below), delves into the future role of the PV in a strongly de-carbonized energy mix, ie deprived of most fossil fuels.

The scenario global reference is that of "Energy transformation" summarized in the diagram below, taken from the study of IRENA, where in 2050 the CO2 emissions related to energy will be dropped by around 70% compared to today, thanks to the increase in renewables, to efficiency policies and to the growing electrification of consumption in some key sectors such as transport and heating of buildings.

We speak, in fact, of 9.8 billion tons / year of CO2 (Gt, giga-tons) in 2050, while the current policies would lead to 33 Gt / year. So in essence, in the second case, there would be only one minimum reduction from the peak of emissions recorded in 2018.

And in the transformation scenario, according to the agency, photovoltaics would have many cards to play.

The next graph shows the expected evolution of the cumulative PV power all over the world.

The total installed power, in the scenario of "Energy transformation", will grow about six times from 2018 to 2030, from 480 GW to 2.840 GW then exceed 8,500 GW in 2050; on average + 8.9% per year over the entire period considered, reaching 270-372 GW of new annual capacity in 2030 and 2050 respectively (in 2018 approximately 94 GW were added).

To achieve new PV systems of big dimensions (utility-scale), explains the agency, it will cost less and less as the following graph clarifies.

You can go down, respectively, to 340-165 $ / kW in 2030 and 2050 according to IRENA calculations against an average of $ 1,210 / kW in 2018.

While I LCOE values (Levelized Cost of Electricity) could decrease up to 0.02-0.014 $ / kWh in 2030 and 2050, against an average around 0.085 $ / kWh at the end of 2018 (the values ​​then went down again: for example, see here the latest Bloomberg New Energy data Finance), thus making photovoltaics fully competitive with fossil fuels.

Finally, the diagram below shows how far still has to do photovoltaics to achieve the objectives indicated in the study: a lot will ultimately depend on the policies and measures that will be put in place by individual governments around the world. A little the same story …

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