"The benefits of solar power are compelling: environmental protection, economic growth, job creation, diversity of fuel supply and rapid deployment, as well as the global potential for technology transfer and innovation."

FOREWORD

Solar energy is a success story. It already supplies electricity to several hundred thousand people around the world, provides employment for over ten thousand and generates business worth more than $1 billion dollars. In the future, the pace of change and progress could be even more rapid as the solar industry unlocks its hidden promise.

The benefits of solar power are compelling: environmental protection, economic growth, job creation, diversity of fuel supply and rapid deployment, as well as the global potential for technology transfer and innovation.

The underlying advantage of solar energy is that the fuel is free, abundant and inexhaustible. The total amount of energy irradiated from the sun to the earth’s surface is enough to provide more than 10,000 times the annual global energy consumption. Yet these benefits remain largely untapped; most energy decisions taken today overlook solar power as a modular technology which can be rapidly deployed to generate electricity close to the point of consumption. Phasing in solar photovoltaics therefore requires a shift from centralised to decentralised power production, offering far greater control to individual consumers.

A solid international consensus now clearly states that business-as-usual is no longer an option if we are to prevent dangerous climate change, and the world must move into a clean energy economy. Solar power is a prime choice in developing an affordable, feasible, global power source that is able to substitute for fossil fuels in all climate zones around the world.

Greenpeace and the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) have produced this report in order to update our understanding of the contribution that solar power can make to the world’s energy supply. The report is a practical blueprint to show that solar power is capable of supplying electricity to more than one billion people within two decades.

This joint initiative adopted the title “Solar Generation” because it aims to define the role that solar electricity will play in the lives of a global population born today as it develops into a major energy consumer group and starts to enter the job market. The aim has been to examine how solar electricity will be perceived from both a consumer and business point of view within the time scale of a generation. The report highlights the triple benefits which solar energy offers the world – for the environment, for industry and for economic and social development.

Reports are a useful guide, but it is people who change the world by their action. We encourage politicians and policymakers, global citizens, energy officials, companies, investors and other interested parties to support solar power by taking concrete steps which will help ensure that more than a billion people will get electricity from the sun, harnessing the full potential of solar power for our common good.