The world has “unlimited potential” for renewable electricity and all that’s needed to unlock this is profit, according to Christian Breyer, professor for Solar Economy at Finland’s LUT University.

“We need positive business cases,” he said, invoking former US president Bill Clinton’s 1990s campaign slogan. “It’s like what Bill Clinton said many years ago: ‘It’s the economy, stupid’.”

The weighted average cost of capital is arguably more important than solar conditions and high irradiance for determining a market’s success.

High oil import costs linked to geopolitical tensions means more regions are prioritizing domestic renewables production. Electrification “is being driven by pure economics, whether on a micro scale from individual investors, or on a macro scale from a country-level, because they simply cannot afford the alternative, which is typically very expensive oil,” said Breyer. Of all new installed capacity globally, solar PV represents 70%, while all renewables together represent 90%, he added.

Stanford University professor Mark Z. Jacobson tracks the performance of countries and US states based on how much of their per capita electricity demand they can supply using 100% renewables, or wind, water, and solar (WWS).

Based on current installation rates, China is on track to reach 100% WWS in the early 2050s and several smaller economies have surpassed this milestone already – including Laos, the Netherlands, Norway, Paraguay, Costa Rica and Nepal. Many of these nations that have surpassed this mark or are close to it are predominantly hydropower countries, Jacobson pointed out.

Where does that leave PV in the WWS equation? In the United States data, Jacobson said solar is contributing significantly in many regions and there are some unexpected surprises. At just over 65% renewables, the northern state of Maine is dominated by solar, which Jacobson said is thanks to strong rooftop PV presence. This shows that even smaller installations make a difference in the grand scheme of things.

In the top 14 states on the index, Nevada and California are dominated by solar, which is not surprising due to their high irradiance levels. California could reach 100% WWS by 2035, while South Dakota and Montana have already surpassed it.

But the fight isn’t over until non-renewable generation is gone, and it has not. Lots of regions are still trading and exporting dirty fuels. The biggest threat to the progress of 100% renewables is “greed and disinformation,” said Breyer, who pointed to projects being blocked for ideological reasons in markets like Germany. “If legislation goes in the direction of a higher fossil fuel dependence, if it’s not legal corruption then it’s at least ethically and morally unacceptable.”

“Politicians who want to do something good for their countries go for renewables,” the LUT University scientist said. “Currently, we live in a fossil fuel economy.”

Both Breyer and Jacobson are strongly opposed to nuclear, arguing that it merely blocks wind, solar and battery investments and leads to curtailment and higher electricity prices.

California still has around 2.2 GW of constant nuclear generation on its grid which means enormous amounts of wind and solar are wasted. “The whole thing is pretty ridiculous,” said Jacobson; “The more wind and solar and renewables you have, the less useful nuclear becomes.”

Storage and flexibility

Adding batteries to store non-dispatchable generation from solar and wind really weakens the business case for nuclear, as both Breyer and Jacobson said. Batteries mean more flexibility for global electricity grids because they store and release generation from wind and solar to dispatch as needed. Demand response programs leveraging batteries are increasingly being harnessed for heavy industry. However, battery storage is only one type of flexibility; a study by Breyer and his team identified 21 additional types of flexibility.

The other types of flexibility under the storage category besides batteries include pumped hydro, underground compressed air energy storage, thermal energy storage, and hydrogen storage. Some of these forms – such as hydrogen electrolyzers – are too costly at the moment. Breyer believes that this could change.

He added that green hydrogen production could be buffered by storage during the day to provide a base supply of power for onsite industrial needs like ammonia, jet fuel, methanol, and steel production.

Sector coupling and power-to-X research is advancing thanks to the work of scientists like Breyer and Jacobson, but the economic case and proof of profitability have yet to materialize for these to make a difference at scale, said Breyer.

But he claimed solar is more likely than wind to gain from power-to-X commercialization because it is significantly cheaper.

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