Reproduced from IEA’s Renewables 2019 report; Chart: Axios Visuals
IEA's new report sees rapid growth of solar power systems located at homes, businesses and industrial plants. They forecast this distributed capacity reaching 530 GW in five years.
The intrigue: Rooftop solar at homes isn't the main driver. "Contrary to conventional wisdom, distributed [photovoltaic] growth is dominated by commercial and industrial applications rather than residential," IEA notes.
The big picture: This rapid growth is still just a fraction of distributed solar's potential, IEA said.
- Even reaching 600 GW would represent just 6% of distributed solar's worldwide "technical potential" based on available rooftop area.
- They see the prospect of "massive expansion" in coming decades, but warn that "major policy and tariff reforms are required to make distributed solar growth sustainable."
