The utilization of renewable energy as a future energy resource is drawing significant attention worldwide. The contribution of solar energy (including concentrating solar power (CSP) and solar photovoltaic (PV) power) to global electricity production, as one form of renewable energy sources, is generally still low, at 3.6%.
Solar power works by converting energy from the sun into power. There are two forms of energy generated from the sun for our use – electricity and heat. Solar is an important part of NESO’s ambition to run the grid carbon zero by 2025.
Panels now occupy an area around half that of Wales, and this year they will provide the world with about 6% of its electricity—which is almost three times as much electrical energy as America consumed back in 1954. Yet this historic growth is only the second-most-remarkable thing about the rise of solar power.
The Future of Solar Energy considers only the two widely recognized classes of technologies for converting solar energy into electricity — photovoltaics (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP), sometimes called solar thermal) — in their current and plausible future forms.
While the contribution of solar energy to global electricity production remains generally low at 3.6%, it has firmly established itself among other renewable energy technologies, comprising nearly 31% of the total installed renewable energy capacity in 2022 (IRENA, 2023).
Annual generation was 14 TWh in 2022 (4.3% of UK electricity consumption) and peak generation was more than 11 GW. PV panels have a capacity factor of around 10% in the UK climate. Home rooftop solar panels installed in 2022 were estimated to pay back their cost in ten to twenty years.