Solar energy: international collaboration is essential to counteract rising costs

 Photovoltaics represent an extremely important energy both for the present and for the future. Implementing policies that involve more countries is a necessary goal for the global spread of solar energy to combat climate change and to replace fossil fuels that are experiencing a general increase in prices.

Without global policies for the development of photovoltaics you risk the surge in costs by 2030

Nature’s study, entitled "Quantifying the cost Savings of global solar photovoltaic supply chains", examines the historical solar capacity and the price of photovoltaic components for the three countries that are currently the largest producers of panels: USA, China and Germany. The study shows that the implementation of policies that conflict with international collaboration leads, first of all, to an increase in costs; the report predicts, in fact, that continuing with this type of policy, will generate, by 2030, an increase in costs of 25-30%.

 Thinking however, from the point of view of the development of photovoltaics, the report shows that implementing measures exclusively internal, generates a spread of renewable energy localized, not allowing a global development, also in view of climate change.

 For the USA, solar capacity data comes from the Solar Energy Industries Association and module prices are assembled from two sources: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). For China, both installed capacity and module price data for the decade 2007-2018 were extracted from reports and presentations by the Energy Research Institute (ERI) while the data for 2019-2020 were extracted from the China Photovoltaic Industry Association. For Germany, the data come from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

 Photovoltaics, a crucial pillar of energy transitions

IEA, the International Energy Agency, just about solar energy, has drawn up a report on photovoltaics globally. IEA states, in fact, that photovoltaics is the crucial pillar of energy transitions, especially because the amount of solar photovoltaic distributed around the world has increased enormously.

 However, the report shows that China is in a dominant position in the world over every single solar photovoltaic supply. According to the IEA it is essential to develop supply chains to create jobs, investment, recycling with the aim of developing globally a resource that will be important for the energy and environmental future of the Earth.