Believe it or not there are places love coal so much that they seem to despise their citizen’s health and wellbeing. The rest of the world is moving to renewables rather quickly and this year marks is the first that solar is now the biggest single source of electricity. That’s right: just one source of renewable electricity has overtaken the most harmful source of electricity. The future is 100% renewable!
Solar power delivered the lion’s share of growth, meeting 83% of the increase in electricity demand. It has now been the largest source of new electricity globally for three years in a row.
Most solar generation (58%) is now in lower-income countries, many of which have seen explosive growth in recent years.
That’s thanks to spectacular reductions in cost. Solar has seen prices fall a staggering 99.9% since 1975 and is now so cheap that large markets for solar can emerge in a country in the space of a single year, especially where grid electricity is expensive and unreliable, says Ember.