Energy systems are going through rapid transitions. The latest report from McKinsey, a world-renowned management consulting firm, shows that solar energy will achieve exponential growth in ten years and will continue to grow until 2050. In most countries and regions around the world, solar costs and prices will be lower than natural gas and coal.
In order to cope with global warming, control global air pollution, and promote energy transformation, renewable energy has become the main force of future development. Solar energy, with its inexhaustible feature, is one of the fastest growing energy sources in renewable energy.
McKinsey predicts that solar power will explode 60 times between 2015 and 2050, after which solar energy will become the world's leading energy source. Similarly, this prediction is confirmed with the data provided by the International Renewable Energy Agency's (IRENA) 2050 Global Energy Transformation Road map (GET2050) report. According to the report, the total power generation of renewable power in the world will climb from the current 26% to 85% in 2050, of which up to 60% comes from solar and wind.
With restriction of policy, technology and market conditions, solar energy development speeds vary from country to country.The analysis shows that in Germany and Spain, the development of solar photovoltaic power will enable the solar industry to achieve a cost parity with natural gas and coal around 2020. Following these pioneers is India and Australia, where photovoltaic solar energy will catch up with natural gas in 2020.
The rapid development of solar energy and its popularity in various fields has largely benefited from the decline in solar cells and energy storage costs. McKinsey data shows that between 2012 and 2017, cell costs fell more than 15% per year, a five-year decline of more than 50%. With the continuous improvement of technology, manufacturing scale and energy storage system engineering design, the installation cost per kWh of energy storage system will be reduced by about 55% by 2025. The data also predicts, with the increasement of global competition, solar cell kits cost will fall by more than 50% in 2025, .
As an important part of solar energy products, solar cells, will keep lowering the cost, which will benefit the rapid development of solar energy industry, and the development of solar energy market will also promote the improvement of solar energy technology.
The decline of solar energy cost will promote the development of the solar street lamp industry. According to statistics, by the end of 2014, the annual production capacity of China's solar street lamp industry reached 15 million sets, and the annual output of the industry reached 13.15 million sets. From the overall development trend of China's solar street lamp industry, some institutions expect that the industry's production capacity will reach 22 million sets by 2020, the industry capacity utilization rate will remain at around 92%, and the industry's output in 2020 is expected to be around 20.25 million sets. Some research institutes say that by 2024, the solar street lamp market will reach 18 billion US dollars.
Nowadays, traditional street lights and solar street lights are the mainstream products of outdoor lighting market. From a cost perspective, the initial purchase fee of solar street lights is slightly higher than traditional lights (but in the long term, the economic benefits of solar street lights are definitely much better). However, with the explosive growth of solar energy, the initial cost of solar street lamps will be lower than that of the traditional street lights in the near future, and the economic benefits will be further enhanced.
From an industry perspective, in the short term, solar street lights have not yet fully blossomed due to technical bottlenecks. However, with the explosion of solar energy, technological advances will be promoted, photoelectric conversion efficiency will increase, and solar street lamps will cost less. The incremental market for street lamps will be greatly enhanced, and the future application scenarios for solar street lamps will be more extensive and will be increasingly applied to municipal projects. It is worth mentioning that in some countries and regions where the economy is underdeveloped and the cost of electricity is high, Road Smart solar street lamps have been widely used in road lighting including highways, primary roads, secondary roads, urban trunk roads and other places.
As a new energy source, solar energy is clean and environmentally friendly. People's environmental awareness are further enhanced, the acceptance and recognition of solar energy also greatly increase. All of this will further promote the expansion of the solar street lamp incremental market. Technological advancement drive the development of solar-related industries. Solar street lights will also usher in a new role and status. In the future, with the acceleration of the upgrading of the market lighting industry, solar street lamp market will be unlimited and full of potential.