A recent story by The New Yorker dove into the astonishing growth of solar energy over the past few years. Among other extensive data, the magazine notes that renewables made up 96 percent of demand for new energy throughout the globe in 2024; In the United States, 93 percent of new energy capacity came from solar and wind.
But while renewables writ large are having their day, the speed at which solar energy in particular is growing blows everything else out of the water.
For example, it’s now estimated that the world is now installing one gigawatt worth of solar energy infrastructure every 15 hours — or about the output of a new coal plant.
For some historical context, the New Yorker notes that it took 68 years since the invention of the first photovoltaic solar cell in 1954 to construct a single terawatt’s worth of solar power. It took just two years to hit the second terawatt in 2024, and the third is expected within mere months.
This explosive growth has been fueled by huge efficiency gains in solar energy output, breakthroughs in manufacturing, and streamlined installation processes. There’ve also been huge developments in panel recycling, meaning the darker side of solar energy — mineral extraction and panel fabrication — might one day be a thing of the past.
Sadly I think none of those options really apply to me. We don’t usually have basements here and dehumidifiers are more commonly used in winter rather than summer. Washing machine I do have but run it on a low temperature so while that would work it isn’t going to be making much difference. Clothes dry outside, don’t have a dishwasher, water is from the mains, no EV to charge.
A well could be nice for garden water rather than using the mains but I live in the middle of a town and my back garden is only around 50m², that said I just looked it up and apparently you don’t need permission if you extract less than 20m³ a day. So from a legal standpoint I could do it and there is no way you could use that much water for a residential property unless you have a large pool that you are regularly filling and emptying for some reason.