With investment of more than $3 trillion over the next 35 years, solar is poised to push past nuclear and coal and become “the default technology of the future to generate and supply electricity,” according to a new analysis by investment bank UBS.
UBS analysts said global solar generating capacity will triple by 2025, then triple again between 2025 and 2050, to approach 3,000 gigawatts by mid-century.
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“While many believe the rise in distributed solar will hurt utilities as they lose control of their customers, the UBS analysts conclude the opposite,” Greentech reports. “The majority of projects will continue to be utility-scale, they say, making the solar business similar to the wind business.”
The UBS analysts see little prospect of grid defection as a result of new battery technologies. “Given the economics of energy storage, the high concentration of solar production in just a handful of hours during the year, and the batteries’ technical limitations on the number of cycles (charge/discharge), customers will not be able to get off the grid,” they write.
