The cost of solar panels is plummeting, and this will flood the power grid with cheap electricity. But that’s just Act 1. We won’t stop building solar at the limits of the grid - we’ll build a lot more.
Solar PV is the only way to make electricity with no moving parts. This makes it much easier to mass manufacture than other energy sources.
If you can make something that resembles a flat silicon pebble, manufacturers will look at it and say “hell yeah”. Humans are very good at driving down the cost of flat silicon pebbles - think semiconductors, windows, LEDs and touchscreens.
This means that solar deployment is accelerating at breathtaking speed. Most of the world's solar power was installed in the past 30 months. In fact, China installed more solar in 2023 than the US has installed in history.
In the UK in 2024, I can go online and buy a solar panel with the same dimensions as a fence panel, for only double the cost. In five years, the cost of solar will have halved again.