And the winner is: Renewable energy!

It could appear as if the rise of solar energy is starting to lose momentum lately. In the Netherlands, for example, this year is clearly less sunny than recent years. Partly because of this, and because electricity prices have fallen sharply after the peaks in 2022, the boom in applications for new panels has come to an end. In addition, the abolition of the net metering mechanism in 2027 has now almost become definite, which has even caused some solar panel companies to get into financial difficulties (fortunately not Zonnefabriek, by the way!)

Events at a global level can also be a reason for concern about the future of solar energy: in the US, climate sceptics will soon come to power again; oil and gas companies are downscaling their green efforts and the results of the last climate summit in Baku did not meet all expectations. But if we look at things in the longer term, it doesn't look that bad after all. Here's a selection of recent news:

Sun is in, coal is out

Renewable energy (light blue) now accounts for more than half of our electricity (source: CBS)

In the Netherlands, more than half of our electricity has come from renewable sources for the first time since this year, according to the Dutch Statistics Agency CBS. And this is happening while electricity consumption is only increasing! After natural gas (35%) wind energy made the largest contribution to the national electricity production (29%), but solar panels were a strong third with 20%. Meanwhile, the use of coal as fuel for power stations continued to decline, to just 6.5% of the total. These figures show that the definitive closure of the last coal-fired power stations in the Netherlands in 2030 shouldn't be a problem, just as England has already proved this year.

There are also successes to be mentioned on a global scale. The total installed capacity of solar panels recently exceeded 2 TeraWatt (TW, 1 TW = 1000 GigaWatt (GW), or 1,000,000 MegaWatt). You will probably remember our news item from June 2022: then we celebrated the installation of 1 TW of panels. The energy transition is clearly accelerating. It took 68 years to reach the first TW; the next one took only 2 years!

It took 68 years to reach the first TW but only 2 until the second! (source: Global Solar Council)

Thanks in part to you!

In the meantime, so much production capacity for solar panels has been set up that it is in principle possible to add another TW every year. China, where the vast majority of these panels are produced, already has more than 800 GW of installed capacity, more than any other country in the world. At the same time, oil consumption in China will probably not increase any further because the country is rapidly switching to electric transport. In this way, even the largest emitter of carbon dioxide is moving in the right direction

It is clear that there is still plenty of work to be done: after all, there is still much to be gained in the world of energy. But the long-term trend is clear: solar panels are the most important and fastest growing new source of electricity, not only in our country, but worldwide. And that success is also partly yours!