By Anders Lorenzen

Many clean energy advocates and professionals woke up on November 8th to the news of a second Trump presidency and wondered what it would mean for the sector’s outlook. Meanwhile, the industry group The Global Solar Council could on Thursday announce that the solar industry had reached a major milestone.

Data showed that the industry had reached the giant milestone of more than 2 terawatts (TW) of installed solar capacity worldwide. The group explained that in the past two years, more capacity has been added than in the 68 years prior to that.

The installed global capacity equals the electricity needs of 92 million US households. To calculate the world’s installed solar capacity, the industry group collected data from national solar associations and developers. They found that 60% of the installed TW comes from ground-based solar farms, while rooftop solar installations account for 40%.

8 TW by 2030

The industry group is not resting on its laurels and has already turned its sights on the hugely ambitious goal of reaching 8 TW by 2030.

As one measure to achieve this, the council unveiled the International Solar Finance Group at the UN’s climate conference COP29, which is currently underway. It aims to connect multilateral banks, private finance, and international institutions. By doing this, they hope to drive down the cost of capital in emerging and developing economies from 15% to 5 %.

Solar power is currently the world’s fastest-growing energy source.

COP29 runs from Monday, 11th – Friday, 22nd of November 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan.