What's actually happening with renewables? Hype, revolution, or both?: Renewable advocates

The verdict on the projections

In 2010, the IEA projected 26 gigawatts of solar by 2020. The world installed 135. By 2023, annual installations hit 420 gigawatts — a number the 2015 models did not expect until after 2040. Solar’s cost fell from $5.79 per watt in 2010 to $0.90 in 2023. An 85 percent decline in thirteen years. Nuclear moved in the opposite direction. Coal has been flat for decades. Solar just falls.

The grid realists tell us about intermittency. The sun sets. The wind stops. We know. What they underestimate is storage. Battery costs fell 97 percent between 1991 and 2023. Australia’s first grid-scale battery was mocked in 2017. By 2023, Australia had 4 gigawatts and the mockery had gone quiet. Tesla’s Megapack is a $10 billion annual business.

No previous fuel was cheaper

The transition realists remind us no energy transition has been complete. True. Also: no previous energy source was cheaper than the incumbent. Coal was more expensive than wood per BTU. Oil won on density, not price. Solar is the first source that is simply cheaper. When the new thing costs less, the historical pattern of addition may not hold.

China installed more solar in 2023 than the US has in its entire history. Not altruism — China manufactures 80 percent of the world’s panels, and manufacturing dominance in the cheapest energy source is industrial strategy. The geopolitics of energy are flipping in real time, and most Western policymakers have not caught up.

Where we concede ground: We have been cavalier about grid integration. A grid at 30 percent solar works differently than at 80 percent.

What would change our mind: If solar and battery cost declines plateau for five consecutive years — if the learning curve breaks, the way it broke for nuclear.

Read the full synthesis: What’s actually happening with renewables? Hype, revolution, or both?