“I would put my money in solar energy”

By Felipe A. Larraín, researcher at the Center for Energy Transition (CENTRA) of the Faculty of Engineering and Sciences of the Adolfo Ibáñez University.

Over 90 years ago, Thomas A. Edison said, “I would put my money in the sun and solar power. What a power source! I hope we don’t have to wait for oil and coal to run out to address that challenge.” And we didn’t have to wait for fossil fuels to run out!

The world has seen an unprecedented decline in the price of photovoltaic solar panels, from $4.12 to less than $0.15 per watt of capacity in the last 12 years – more than 24 times! This price reduction was the evidence that ended up silencing even the most pessimistic voices, enabling exponential growth in global installed capacity. And it is that this technology is not only mature but also tremendously efficient.

Incorporating contributions from humanity’s most renowned scientists and technologists – including Albert Einstein – government contributions from space exploration programs and subsidies for industrial scale-up, photovoltaic cells have increased their efficiency from around 6% in 1954 to +22% today in day. These values ​​are impressive. For us to have a point of comparison, even nature is not that efficient at transforming sunlight into chemical energy! Solar energy conversion efficiency in plants is in the range of 0.5-2%. However, today we find ourselves in an even more delicate situation than a possible shortage of fossil energy.

Climate balances have been significantly disturbed by climate change, and therefore the energy transition to sustainability is urgent. One of the latest warning signs was the recent publication in the prestigious magazine Nature Communicationsfrom new Arctic ice melt projections.

In all the modeled scenarios, and starting in 2030, the ice would melt completely from the month of September. In this context, it becomes even more relevant that we plan our development, adapting to a seasonally ice-free Arctic. This implies not only an energy transition to sustainability, but also increasing the robustness, flexibility and resilience of our electrical and thermal energy systems – and in addition, the food sector and the water value chain.

The task is multidisciplinary and requires the collaborative work of society, scientists and entrepreneurs, capable of developing innovative business models around this source of energy.

What new paths of value creation appear around photovoltaic solar panels? In the short and medium term: new financing modalities arise that allow the penetration of this technology at the residential and commercial level; secondly, the installation of solar panels on bodies of water – including the sea – to take advantage of the performance improvements for cooling; then, the combination with batteries and other renewable energies to facilitate electromobility or to make clean fuels, and finally, the recycling and repair of panels.

In short, given the abundant radiation that our country receives and the desire of its human capital to contribute to our participation in the knowledge economy, Chile has a unique opportunity to create value in the photovoltaic solar sector. Let’s take advantage of it.