Rapid proliferation may mean solar energy could have passed ‘tipping point’, say researchers

Scientists warn that the earth will cross multiple tipping points and cause irreversible changes to the climate system if global temperatures continue to rise at current rates. Amid the din of projections that say fossil fuel use is still too high in our energy systems, a new study suggests the world may have already crossed another crucial tipping point – one that offers more hope in the face of climate change.

The tipping point in question is the proliferation of solar energy, which the study says may now see widespread adoption even without additional policies supporting renewable energy.

According to the latest World Energy Outlook by the International Energy Agency, investments in clean energy have risen by 40% since 2020 and more than $1 billion per day is being spent on solar deployment. With this, the installed capacity of solar photovoltaic is poised to surpass coal by 2027 and become the largest installed capacity of energy in the world.

Researchers from the United Kingdom, Sweden and the US have used additional metrics to take these projections even further, estimating solar, along with wind, could “irreversibly become the dominant electricity technologies within one-two decades, as their costs and rate of growth far undercut all alternatives”. More traditional modelling studies have failed to...

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