Solar energy is outpacing incentives

Some of the world's largest economies, from the United States to China, are reducing their support for solar energy . But the sector continues to accelerate. According to estimates by Goldman Sachs Research , new global installations will reach 914 gigawatts by 2030 , 57% more than in 2024. "The increase in solar generation is the fastest in the history of electricity," explains Daan Struyven , co-head of global commodities research at Goldman Sachs. In just 11 years, solar has produced 2,129 terawatt-hours, covering 8% of global production in the last 12 months.

The path is not without obstacles. In markets like California, Australia, and the Iberian Peninsula, oversupply has repeatedly led to negative prices and blackouts. On the policy front, Beijing has excluded new large commercial installations from the grid and no longer guarantees minimum prices or purchase volumes. In the US, tax credits will keep projects afloat until 2030, but starting in 2028, new federal regulations could slow installations.

Despite everything, Goldman Sachs identifies three forces that will continue to drive the solar boom : falling panel costs (they drop 20% for every doubling of cumulative production), the absence of marginal fuel costs, and the technology's modularity , which favors decentralized grids over large fossil-fuel or nuclear plants. Furthermore, there will hardly be a shortage of panels: China's production capacity alone covered 200% of global demand in 2024. "Any slowdown in solar growth will stem more from declining political support and electricity supply volatility than from panel supply bottlenecks," Struyven concludes.