The cost of solar panels is plummeting, and this will flood the power grid with cheap electricity. But that’s just Act 1. We won’t stop building solar at the limits of the grid - we’ll build a lot more.
This post explains why we'll keep building more,
I fear for induced demand. If electricity is cheap, why build more efficiently? Why not do bitcoin mining or AI training?
It wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t plenty of places around the world that could desperately use solar panels, that are building fossil fuel infrastructure instead. Climate change is a global problem, so the obsession with getting your individual emissions down to zero is selfish and sometimes even detrimental to the climate if “your emissions” don’t include the cost of manufacturing and limited availability.
We should be sending solar panels to the developing world as fast as humanly possible, not making electricity so cheap in California that multinationals can open up a couple more data centers.
More of addendum than criticism - sending random stuff to developing countries is one of the problems. Solar panels need proper infrastructure and maintenance. Instead of sending them for the west to feel good, we should rather empower governments of those countries to take their own initiative, build infrastructure, train people and make the panels very affordable for them.
Relevant Video.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HpjbkQr0JAE