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LONDON — Solar and wind energy could replace fossil fuels entirely to become the world's power source by 2050, a new report has claimed.
Published Friday, the report from thinktank Carbon Tracker also predicted that if wind and solar power continued on their current growth trajectory, they would push fossil fuels out of the electricity sector by the mid-2030s.
Current technology gave the world the power to capture 6,700 Petawatt hours (PWh) of power from solar and wind energy, researchers claimed – more than 100 times the amount of energy consumed globally in 2019.
Despite the potential for vast amounts of energy to be harvested, just 0.7 PWh of solar power and 1.4 PWh of wind energy was generated in 2019, according to the report.
However, its authors were confident that continued falling costs were likely to drive exponential growth in the generation of solar and wind power. An annual growth rate of 15% would see solar and wind generating all of the world's electricity by the mid-2030s and providing all energy worldwide by 2050.
The report noted that the cost of solar power had declined by an average of 18% per year since 2010, while wind power prices had fallen by an average of 9% every year in the same period.
Solar power had grown at an average annual rate of 39% over the last decade, almost doubling in capacity every two years, according to the report. Meanwhile, wind energy had grown in capacity by 17% a year, with advances like better panels and higher turbines helping to reduce costs.