Solar Pv Energy Will Be Cheap Across China By 2060

China will be the focus of the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland. As the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, China's efforts to decarbonize its energy system are critical to the goal of limiting the global average surface temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

China has made major commitments to switch its energy system to renewable energy, especially solar, wind and hydropower. However, there are many unknowns about the future of China's solar energy, including the cost, technical feasibility and grid compatibility in the next few decades. Recent forecasts of the cost of China’s future solar energy potential rely on obsolete and overestimated solar panels and their installation costs, as well as storage technologies such as lithium-ion batteries.

What is the actual cost of solar energy in China in the next few decades, including the challenges that its inherent variability will bring to the grid?

Researchers from Harvard University, Tsinghua University in Beijing, Nankai University in Tianjin, and Renmin University of China in Beijing have found that by 2060, solar energy can provide 43.2% of China's electricity demand at a price of less than 2 cents per kilowatt. Hour. In comparison, China's coal-fired electricity prices in 2019 ranged from 3.6 to 6.5 cents per kWh.

If costs continue to fall, especially storage costs, there may be opportunities to power vehicles, heat or cool buildings, or produce industrial chemicals, all of which use solar energy. This will make the climate and environmental benefits of solar energy far beyond the traditionally envisaged power sector.