It’s time to accept that clean energy isn’t just a fad or trend. Clean energy is here to stay. Come on, it’s potentially powering the battery of your device, to read this blog! Clean energy could be feeding the battery of your Tesla Model 3 so you have enough battery to pick up your kids from school, drive an hour to your daughter’s softball game, drive back, and finish the rest of the movie you were watching last night while you wait for your son to finish up football practice. Now, that’s cool to think about.
Renewable clean energy comes in many forms: solar, wind, water, geothermal, bioenergy, and nuclear. Today, we’ll focus on the most abundant form of clean energy: solar. Seriously, it’s the most abundant. One hundred seventy-three thousand terawatts of solar energy strike the Earth continuously, more than 10,000 times the world’s total energy use. Now that we’re thinking about it, it makes sense that solar continues to lead the charge as the fastest-growing clean energy for the 19th year.
Solar is not slowing
In 2023, solar produced a record 5.5% of global electricity, a whopping 1,631 TWh. Energy generation is measured in kilowatts (kWh) per hour in residential homes or power bills. A kWh is a unit of energy equal to outputting one thousand watts for one hour. With that in mind, a terawatt-hour is a unit of energy equal to outputting one trillion watts for one hour. We know the world generated a total of 29,471 TWh in 2023. Converting that measure into kWh measures out to be 29,471,000,000,000 kWh. In English, that translates to twenty-nine trillion three hundred and eighty-one billion one hundred million kilowatts per hour. After all, almost eight billion people live on Earth.
Let’s talk about how far we’ve come. In 2000, solar energy produced only 1 TWh, so we’re up +1,631% in the last 23 years. Solar generation in 2015 came in at a total of 256 TWh. In fact, solar energy continues to accelerate and has more than doubled (+131%, +925 TWh) since 2019, when the total generation for that year was 706 TWh.
Analyzing the growth
As a world, the absolute generation of solar energy grew 307 TWh in 2023 alone. This means the total energy generated from solar power was 307 TWh. From 2022 to 2023, the world saw a rise of 23% in total generation, falling shy of the 25% increase we experienced from 2021 to 2022. In terms of solar energy’s share of global generation, we saw a rise of .9%, from 4.6% to 5.5%.
To explain this further, the fastest-growing clean energy source outperformed coal by adding twice as much new energy to the total energy generation in 2023. This is an excellent sign that the world is moving in the right direction towards eliminating fossil fuels.
Who is leading the pack?
In 2023 alone, 33 countries generated more than a tenth of their energy from the fastest-growing clean energy. China finished the year with the leading amount of energy generated from solar power at a whopping 584 TWh, ahead of the US’s 238 TWh. It’s essential to remember that these statistics aren’t competition; we’re all working together to make the world more sustainable. More importantly, seeing where each country lies on the path toward eliminating fossil fuels is encouraging to measure and see.
With Everlight Solar operating in the US, it’s encouraging to see that we are contributing to the rise of solar energy here in America. As a nation coming in second in overall solar power generation in 2023 below China, there’s no guessing where the fastest clean energy source will be at this time next year. At Everlight, we strive to push forward towards a more sustainable future.
How do we push further?
- Taking solar ownership into your own hands: We can significantly reduce our carbon footprint by generating electricity from sunlight rather than fossil fuels. This shift towards clean energy is crucial in combating climate change and preserving the planet for future generations. Click here to find out how you can make a difference.
- Start a career in the Solar Industry: Another way to contribute to the rising success of clean energy, specifically the solar market, is by working in the solar industry! Solar careers are becoming exceedingly popular, with the United States solar industry currently employing over 255,000 workers as of 2021. For reference, the solar market has continued to experience consistent growth of at least 10% every year. To say the fastest-growing clean energy is slowing down anytime soon would be a mistake.
