We’ve Come a Long Way (Solar) Baby: Solar Energy Facts

We’ve come a long way on the “Yellow Brick Road” to solar energy preponderance. You may or may not believe that solar power can ever be a dominant energy source. And even if you do believe, you undoubtedly know we’ve got a long way to go yet. Still, global solar capacity has been accelerating like a renewable sports car (coming soon?), racing its way ever closer to fossil-fueled tanks that have built themselves a hefty lead over the last century.

Even if you believe nothing else about solar energy, you’ve got to realize its incredible growth over Decade One of the 21st century. The facts are there to prove it. Here are a few, starting with some refreshers about solar energy’s vast potential on Earth:

• In just one hour, more solar energy strikes the Earth’s surface than the entire human population consumes in an entire year.
• At present, global population consumes about 18,000 terawatt-hours of energy per year. We would need to cover just .003% of Earth’s surface with solar panels to equal global consumption.
• Solar radiation hits the earth at a rate of 1,000 watts-per-square-meter. In North America, the going rate on land is about 340 W/m².
• On average, global solar energy capacity has been doubling every two years since 1998. Put in terms of annual shipments of photovoltaic cells and modules in the United States, numbers have increased from 15,069 in 1998 to 280,475 in 2008. That’s an increase of nearly 1900%.
• In 2008, global solar capacity reached 13.4 gigawatts. More than 75% of that came from just two countries: Germany and Spain.
• The largest PV installation in the world is the Olmedilla Photovoltaic Park in Spain, which has a capacity of 60 MW at peak performance.
• The world’s largest solar thermal power plant resides in California’s Mojave Desert. It is NextEra Energy’s SEGS Complex and has a maximum capacity of 354 MW.
• The energy output of 1 kW of solar energy is roughly equal to the burning of 170 lbs. of coal and the emission of 300 lbs. of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So by that reckoning, 13.4 gigawatts of global solar power has offset 2,278,000,000 lbs. of otherwise-burnt coal and 4,020,000,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide.

Despite all this potential and all these incredible gains, there is still a long way to go. Renewable energy consumption accounted for 7% of total U.S. energy consumption in 2008. Of that, solar energy accounted for only 1%. 13.4 gigawatts pales in comparison to 18,000 terawatts. Still, first big steps have been taken and, as big as the gap may be between renewable energy and fossil fuels, the gap is certainly closing.

Sources: Energy Information Administration, Greenbang, & Alternate Energy Sources

Photo Credit: current

Posted on January 21st in Solar Information by Dan.