Why solar energy?

There are a number of reasons to work on solar energy and strive for its large-scale use. They are largely the same for the two main forms of solar energy (solar power and solar heat), but here we address solar power in particular. Briefly, the main reasons are:  

• solar energy is an inexhaustible (“renewable”) energy source;
• solar energy, proper design and manufacturing provided, is eco-friendly;
• solar energy has enormous global potential (i.e. the amount of solar energy that we could harvest is practically unlimited);
• solar energy is applicable almost everywhere on earth;
• solar energy can be used in many ways: ranging from the very small systems at remote locations, through systems on house roofs, to large solar power plants and more;
• solar energy is multifunctional: it is for instance a building component and an energy source at the same time;
• solar energy is ideally capable of supplying “power-to-measure” and can make a significant contribution to human development possibilities;
• all in all, solar energy is a sustainable energy source par excellence.

A rapidly growing market
After reading this list you may wonder why solar energy not yet covers a large part of our energy requirements. On the one hand this is due to the fact that the cost of solar power generation is still higher than that of power generation from gas- or coal-fired power plants. On the other hand it is because we start “from scratch” with solar energy, while global energy consumption is huge. It is simply impossible to grow from very small to very big in just a few years. Fortunately the market for solar energy grows rapidly as a result of government policies and incentives. This, in turn, triggers large-scale production and installation, so that significant economies of scale are achieved. In combination with constant technology improvements this leads to rapidly decreasing costs and prices. As a result, solar energy will be able to stand on its own feet in the first markets and countries within a few years. In the course of this decade the decreasing generation costs of solar electricity are expected to cross retail electricity price levels in most part of the world, including The Netherlands. This point is usually called “grid parity”. After that, the cost of solar electricity will decrease further and it will become competitive with wholesale electricity prices. Eventually solar electricity may become one of the lowest cost options of all. This, however, will only happen if the current process of market growth and technology improvements continues. Therefore we  should not wait for the technology of tomorrow or the day after, but start using it now.