New Delhi (NVI): More than 115 gigawatts (GW) of solar panels will be installed in 2020 across the world, which is more than all other generation technologies put together, a report said.
According to World Economic Forum report, solar energy is increasingly becoming low cost, especially in sunnier regions where it has already become the lowest-cost form of new electricity generation.
In the coming years, technology improvements will ensure that solar panels becomes even cheaper.
It could well be that by 2030, solar panels will become the most important source of energy for electricity production in a large parts of the world.
This will also have a positive impact on the environment and climate change.
Going forward the solar industry has very clear cost-reduction roadmaps, which should see solar costs halving by 2030.
There is already a move in place towards higher-efficiency modules, which can generate 1.5 times more power than existing, similarly sized modules today using a technology called tandem silicon cells.
These are going to have a large impact going forward.
In addition, there are production innovations coming down the pipeline that will reduce the amounts of costly materials such as silver and silicon used in the manufacture of solar cells, as well as innovations such as bifacial modules which allow panels to capture solar energy from both sides.
The other important innovation is around how best to integrate solar into our homes, businesses and power systems.
This means better power electronics and a greater use of low-cost digital technologies.
