McKinsey’s latest report envisages a surge up to 60 times in solar power between 2015 and 2050, and points out the domination of solar power in the global renewable energy market.
Likewise, Global Energy Transformation: A Roadmap to 2050 (GET2050), report concluded by International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), has the similar point of view. According to the report, the total capacity of renewable power in the world, currently accounting for 26% will surge to 85% in 2050, of which up to whooping 60% will come from solar and wind power.
Solar energy is rapidly and widely developing due to declining costs of solar cells and energy storage. McKinsey’s data shows that between 2012 and 2017, cost of battery fell more than 15% per year, totally declined more than 50% in the period. With the continuous improvement of manufacturing scale, technology and energy storage system engineering design, the installation cost per kWh of energy storage system will be reduced by about 55% in 2025. Due to intensive global competition, it is predicted that cost of battery composition will fall by more than 50% in 2025.
Zhang Bin, Senior Vice President of Hanergy Thin Film Power Group says, “The countries around the globe are on an expedition to make an access to sustainable energy more universal and affordable than ever. As solar cells is core to the solar energy products, its cost reduction is likely to benefit the rapid development of solar energy industry. Meanwhile, the development of solar energy market will also spur the improvement of solar energy technology.”
For solar energy, especially for thin-film solar energy, conversion efficiency rate is a key driving factor of the development of solar energy. It is estimated that cost of thin-film solar technology will drop 5% to 8% for 1 percentage point increase in the conversion rate.
Hanergy has acquired solar technology companies such as Solibro, MiaSolé, GSE, and Alta Devices, in order to integrate world’s leading thin-film solar technology into the Hanergy technology system and to accelerate the innovation of thin-film solar technology. Consequently, the conversion rates of Hanergy’s thin film solar technologies have increased at least 1% per year, the company said.
