Solar power will supply around half of the world’s energy by 2035 at current growth rates, U.K.-based academic Andrew Crossland and entrepreneur Andrew Birch predict. It's a trend Birch believes Canada will also follow.

The audacious forecast, named the S-Curve, is much more ambitious than many other industry projections and represents the need for a major leap in solar adoption.

Our World in Data’s energy mix report, for example, says solar provided only two per cent of energy consumed globally in 2023, when adjusted to match the inefficiency of fossil fuels.

Birch, the co-founder and CEO of solar solutions software company OpenSolar, said other forecasters are using an incorrect assumption to calculate energy.

Based on research from the Rocky Mountain Institute, he said energy analysts mistakenly apply the same efficiency assumptions of fossil fuels onto solar energy. Fossil fuels lose 63 per cent of their primary energy between the production and consumption stages, compared to virtually no loss with solar. Thus, solar ends up providing more energy compared to fossil fuels.

Then there is the rapid growth of solar. Birch expects solar to grow at least 25 per cent every year for the next decade.

Solar energy is speeding ahead in development and adoption. U.K.-based energy think tank Ember predicted the world would add 29 per cent more solar capacity in 2024 than it had 2023 – installing 593 gigawatts by the end of the year. The International Energy Agency (IEA) says the rapid buildout of solar energy is in line with a net-zero scenario.

“If the industry continues to grow over the next 10 years at the rate it’s growing over the last 25 years, then the mathematical outcome is 50 per cent,” Birch said in an interview with Sustainable Biz Canada.

Solar’s exponential growth

Using a baseline of solar providing approximately five per cent of global energy in 2025, Birch said applying a growth rate of 25 per cent per year means it will reach approximately 50 per cent of global energy in 10 years.

“The compounding effect of 25 per cent on a big number is where the S-Curve really kicks in.”

But Dave Jones, a chief analyst from Ember, said he would be surprised if such a prediction came to fruition. “There's no way 50 per cent of our energy needs can come from solar by 2035,” he said in an email exchange with Sustainable Biz Canada.

He instead cited an IEA forecast that solar will go from supplying five per cent of electricity in 2023 to 17 per cent by 2030. But that may underestimate its trajectory, he conceded.

“There's a possibility that solar explodes much faster, with the advent of cheaper batteries. Just how cheap and omnipresent batteries will get is likely the biggest determinant of just how much solar can grow to,” Jones said.

Electrification will lower overall energy consumption from the improved efficiency over fossil fuels, Will Noel, a senior analyst in the electricity team of the Calgary-headquartered Pembina Institute think tank, said in email exchange.

Though he believes Birch’s prediction “might be a little bullish”, Noel said it “is not out of the realm of possibility” and agreed increasing adoption of renewables and electrification will “cause a dramatic shift in how we power our economy”.

Canada’s solar potential

Canada currently generates only a very small percentage of its energy or electricity from the sun. Federal government data from 2022 - the latest figures available - says under one per cent of Canada’s electricity is from solar. The IEA’s 2023 data for the country came to a similar conclusion, finding only a sliver of its energy mix is from the likes of solar, geothermal and wind.

It is, however, on the rise.

Canada’s solar energy capacity (for major grid-connected infrastructure) grew by 11.8 per cent in 2023, according to the Canadian Renewable Energy Association.

The perception Canada has limited potential for solar because of the long winters is not accurate, Birch added. Germany receives a similar amount of sunshine per year but produces comparatively far more electricity from the sun.

Red tape, he said, inhibits solar growth in Canada and the U.S. which explains why it has not been growing as rapidly compared to Asia, Europe or Australia (where Birch got his master’s degree in photovoltaic engineering).

“You got bureaucratic processes of getting permitting, getting the right to install, that’s still a problem; the lack of scale in the industry has meant that costs parts per unit are higher than other parts of the world.” He recommends automating permitting and installation to reduce those costs.

Birch is bright on solar

The OpenSolar CEO is positive the solar industry’s pitch will remain compelling because the economics are so convincing, even with tariff threats from the U.S. shaking up global trade. Solar is the cheapest source of energy today, he said, and electrification means lower costs and more efficiency regardless of one’s opinion on the environment.

The return of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency is heightening risk for the solar industry, an experience he is familiar with. Birch said the actions of the first Trump presidency contributed to the downfall of his last company Sungevity in 2017. Yet the obstacles are not new, he said, and he and the industry still survived.

“Megatrends are driven by economics which trump Trump politics.”

OpenSolar, his global platform for over 25,000 contractors in the solar industry, including Canadian firms, plans to roll out new automation features to make it easier for contractors to do business in the sector.

As for Birch, he plans to work with the U.K. government and on U.S. policy to cut away red tape to continue to expand the uptake of solar energy.