New solar technology can be printed or woven into fabric
Our planet is facing an unprecedented global emergency due to the climate crisis. To counter this narrative we need new and disruptive energy technologies. Breakthroughs here can make our planet a better place to live, minimise the deleterious effects of climate change and ensure a high standard of living. Harvesting energy through green and clean means is the way forward to preserve our civilisation. As Jimmy Carter once said: no-one can ever embargo the sun or interrupt its delivery to us”; the sun is the best gift to humanity and harvesting sunlight at a cut-rate price will solve our energy demand issues to a large extent. Renewable technology will drive the energy transition and will also induce geopolitical shifts, creating new alliances and business models. Countries that are currently fossil fuel suppliers will need to reinvent themselves or embrace new technological approaches in order to remain competitive. Our planet’s current energy demand is approximately 16 Terawatts (TW); by 2050 we will need energy for 10 billion people, and this will be around 30TW. To bridge this gap, we need new approaches and changes to the current paradigm. The electric light did not come from the continuous improvement of candles, but through disruptive innovation. The societal pressure to embrace sustainable energy has made photovoltaics (PV) – or solar panels – one of the main contenders. Currently, the PV industry is dominated by silicon-based technology, which has reached the masses and has achieved grid parity (that is, cost parity with traditional sources of energy) in some parts of the world. The costs for solar energy have already fallen 77% from 2010 to 2018 due to an annual growth rate of 7.9% in renewables. In recent years, the PV sector has witnessed a surge of instalments and drastic price reduction; however, the manufacturing of […]