In a study released recently in the journal Research Policy, Oxford University researchers found, in the short term, that solar’s upward swing was unstoppable. The researchers said falling manufacturing costs, which have dropped by 10% a year since the 1980s, would grow solar’s share of global electricity from roughly 1.5% today, to as much as 20% by 2027. Not everyone is as optimistic. The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) most ambitious scenario for renewables puts the amount of electricity produced from solar photovoltaic cells at 16% of global production by 2050. However, the IEA has consistently under-estimated solar. In 2000, it predicted the world’s solar capacity would quadruple over the course of the next 15 years. In reality, it took just five. The IEA then upgraded their 2015 forecast from 5 GW to 14 GW. This time it took just three years to get there.
Guardian 31st Jan 2016 read more »