How solar is disrupting the global energy system | Sarah Chapman | TEDxGuatemalaCity

we are reaching the tipping point which renewable energy is becoming cheaper than fossil fuels for the first time ever countries and companies and individuals are choosing solar and wind not because they're better for the environment but because they save the money let me tell you about solar the cost of solar has fallen by 99 percent in the past 20 years and it continues to get five to ten percent cheaper every year and this is creating economic opportunities that didn't exist even three or four years ago back in 2010 I was financing renewable energy projects in China we were financing wind projects and hydropower projects biomass projects and they were financed using subsidized with carbon credits through a scheme scheme run by the United Nations but solar was nowhere to be seen it was just too expensive this was only five years ago since then things have changed so much between then and now China has installed 30 gigawatts of solar which is 10 times the total energy capacity in Guatemala this is happening so fast one of the things that I find so exciting about solar is the fact that it happens that is working on every possible scale from the poorest people in the world to the biggest multinational corporations everyone can have solar from the farmer who is irrigating his field to the girl who's walking home from school and want to call her mom to get home and the country that wants to light up its cities the biggest solar project in Latin America is a hundred megawatts and it stretches across it has 300,000 solar panels and stretches across three hundred three hundred hectares it's absolutely enormous and it powers an iron ore mine in northern Chile in the Atacama Desert which is one of the sunniest places in the world and there are many more projects like this under development at the moment there's a massive boom going on these huge projects are being developed all across Latin America and all across the world and at the completely the opposite end of the spectrum with a small ascent of smallest size solar is transforming the lives of the poorest people in the world who haven't always had access to energy before and there are amazing companies which are doing this including including in Guatemala we've just heard about one of them these companies typically a solar system will be one small solar panel connected with maybe a couple of LED light bulbs and a mobile phone charger and a system like this maybe will cost fifteen to twenty dollars and we'll be replacing really dirty sources of energy that these people have been using before such as kerosene which is causes huge health problems as well as just being really expensive and some of these companies are using really creative financing mechanisms to mean that these people don't have to pay for their solar system up front they can pay for it over time using their mobile phone and once they pay for it they get the system for free and they have free energy forever or for as long a sensitive system lasts and this is happening at a really huge scale one of the biggest ones of these companies is a company called D light and they have 49 million customers around the world so if they were AG normal energy company they would be the ninth biggest energy company in the world by a number of users which is absolutely extraordinary and it doesn't just work at either end of the spectrum this Solar is creating economic opportunities for people for people in the middle of all different kinds on the residential side the residential solar market is booming and places like California and Australia and in Australia where I used to live 20 percent of houses now have solar on their roof which is amazing for businesses it's also transforming the way they think about the energy systems but many businesses energy is a major part of that cost and it really affects their profitability when energy prices go shooting up that it really impacts them we've talked to a number of lots and lots of companies in Guatemala and elsewhere around the world who have benefited from the recent falls in oil prices but worried about what happens when energy prices go up again which they probably will do sooner or later and and those businesses are able to use solar to lock in their energy to look to lock in the energy price now and never have to worry about volatility again this is extraordinary so what can stop solar now what can stop it taking over the world and being our dominant source of energy well he can't solve all of our problems yet to start with solar and all renewables have a problem with intermittency solar only generates energy during the day wind only generates energy when it's windy so we need something else to provide energy at the rest of the time and right now we're still we still need to use conventional conventional fuels made mainly fossil fuels to provide this power but that won't always be the case imagine if we could have a huge battery or some way of storing the energy that was generated during the day generating when it's windy to use overnight that would transform the way we thought about energy and would mean that we wouldn't have to rely on fossil fuels at all well right now energy storage on this scale is just too expensive it's not possible but this is changing the cost of energy storage is falling really really fast and this is being driven by advances like electric cars and laptops and mobile phones which all needs really good quality batteries and good energy storage to enable them to last for longer and at some point in the next couple of deck it's energy storage will reach the point will be cheap enough it too will reach the tipping point which it is cheaper than fossil fuels and at that point countries and companies which invest in renewables will really see a major advantage the next challenge with renewables is that it is about finance and the way the cost is structured with conventional fuels the major cost is fuel so you pay for your fuel at the same time as you use your energy whereas with renewable energy you have to pay for all of the cost upfront the cost the running costs over time are absolutely a really minimal and this is a big problem because people are used to paying for their energy as they use it they don't want to have to find a large amount of money upfront to pay for their energy so we need to come up with new ways of financing energy to enable people to reap the benefits of clean reliable solar without having to find that money up front and this is the problem that I spend most of my time trying to solve the good news is that if this is possible and there are lots of investors out there who want to invest in renewable energy and we're able to put in place structures that give them good returns and also allow our customers access to clean reliable energy without having to find the money upfront and there are innovative way increasingly innovative ways of doing this which are emerging in the UK where I'm from one thing that's about one way of financing solar and other renewables which is coming coming out its crowdfunding so individual ordinary people can invest a small amount of money in a large solar farm and be part of be part of owning it can we own the system which is fantastic they can get a really good reliable return for their savings and contributes to the transition to a clean energy future which is wonderful the net the other major challenge we have to think about as renewables get a become a bigger and bigger part of our energy system is their impact on the grid our energy grids are designed for large power plants small number of big power plants that generate large amounts of power and have high operating cost because they're burning fuel but in the future this isn't what our energy system is going to look like we're going to have a large number of small power plants spread out all across the country much closer to where people are using the energy and much smaller systems and this is a really different way of designing a grid and from an engineering perspective and also from a funding perspective we have to completely rethink things in Europe where I'm from in some countries renewable energy is reaching penetration of 20 to 30 percent of the total energy that's being used in the market and we're having to redesign our Grist we're taking the grids that we that we designed 50-100 years ago and with with shaking them up we're changing them now for countries like Guatemala where we're building up building out a lot more new energy capacity to deal with the growth that we expect in the future this creates an opportunity we don't need to build the kind of grids that we had in the past that Europe is that Europe has now you can build grids that are designed the first time around for renewable energy but distributed energy and that's actually what's happening in Guatemala there's that where companies here are actively designing the grids now for renewables for energy that is distributed too near where the people are who want to use the energy rather than rather than channeling the energy all the way across the country to get to the people that need it this is fantastic throughout history there have been a number of technologies which have changed the world and really transformed the way that we think about almost everything the printing press steam engine electricity the internet the mobile phone all of these things have complete transforms the world just taking that last example the mobile phone this is what a mobile phone look like 30 years ago and only a handful of people had them it were completely irrelevant now there are more mobile phones in the world than there are adults almost everybody has access to a mobile phone everybody has access to the world's data and this has been extreme even more amazing in developing countries developing countries have been able to leapfrog developed countries by using though they haven't needed to build out expensive landline infrastructure they've just installed cell phone towers and they've been able able to give their people the access to the world's information without undergoing all that expense and the same can be true of solar as well so there is none with small scale renewables they are an opportunity for developing countries to leapfrog developed countries we don't need to build expensive Grid infrastructure to reach the most remote parts of our countries we just need to give them a small solar panel and that may be enough to light their way so what does this all mean to the world what does this Renewable transition me what start with this is going to transform the geopolitics of energy over the next couple of decades historically countries and companies which have had access to big reserves of oil gas and coal have had a natural advantage quite simply if you have access to cheaper energy than your competitors you have a real competitive advantage and so just think why the US economy has been so successful in the last five years it's because fracking because of the shale gas boom that has champa has been driving their economic growth and think why countries like Norway and Russia which have so much Russia Saudi Arabia have so much has so much oil why they so rich in the future countries which is sunny and windy will have this competitive advantage and Central America is one of the sunniest places in the world this is a fantastic opportunity for countries like Guatemala and just to put this into context if you put a solar system on the roof of this building here in Guatemala City it would generate twice as much energy as the same system would in on the roof of my office in London twice as much energy and that means that in Guatemala solar energy is cost competitive with fossil fuels right now whereas in the UK at home it will take another five to ten years for solar to make sense without subsidies the next major thing that I find really exciting about this is the democratization of energy in the past energy assets have been owned by a small number of large corporations and by the government in the future energy assets can be owned by anybody and a normal individual you can own you can own your own solar system on your roof no matter how rich you are or how poor you are and you can participate in crowdfunding to own a small part of a bigger system we're really changing the power structure in the energy sector which is which I find extraordinary and really exciting and finally this is a rare good news story in the fight against one of the biggest threats to our planet which is climate change the world has already warmed by 0.8 degrees since the pre-industrial times and this is already creating climate chaos we're seeing increased storms increased floods increase heat waves and it is only going to get worse we will be lucky to stay on if we manage to limit global warming to 3 or 4 degrees and this is a really terrifying prospect and we know the global warming is caused by human activity and it's mainly caused by the burning of fossil fuels and despite having known this for decades local efforts to reduce emissions are just not enough to solve the problem rich countries are not reducing their emissions fast enough and rapidly industrializing companies are growing their emissions as they seek growth and they're choosing the cheapest ways to to power their economy which of to date historically has so far been fossil fuels but this is changing as renewable energy gets cheaper and cheaper these these countries and companies will be more and more often be choosing to choosing to invest in solar in wind in hydro of biomass not because not because they're better for the environment but because they're cheaper and this changed this tipping point could have more impact on our ability to litter prevent climate change than any climate policy that that is reliant on subsidies could ever have I find this absolutely extraordinary and a great source of hope that we might actually as a civilization as the world have a chance of beating dangerous climate change and that makes me all the more proud and excited and motivated to do my small part in making that transition happen as quickly as possible thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 108,514

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Guatemala, Global Issues, Energy

Id: qAdD-jC74TY

Length: 16min 34sec (994 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 14 2015