Last week, the chairman of the European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference made a bold statement: “solar energy has the potential to meet all the world’s energy needs.” Daniel Lincot, the research director for the Institute for Research and Development of Photovoltaic Energy based in Paris, spoke at the 22nd annual conference meeting in Valencia, Spain. Lincot asserted that there the potential from solar energy is “enormous” – available all over the world as well as from the oceans – thus could potentially “cover all the world energy demand.”
We have a long way to go. Lincot acknowledged that the solar industry currently made a “negligible” contribution to total energy supply. He claimed that countries such as France and Germany would need 5,000 square kilometers of photovoltaic arrays to keep meet their countries’ electrical demand. Given that France is approximately 544,000 km2 and Germany is about 357,000 km2 the countries have room, but is there political will and dollars to install solar arrays on every rooftop?
Well, it’s certainly worth the try!
