How cheap does solar power need to get before it takes over the world?
I think the issue is that OK, say we managed to get to 100% electricity being solar when the sun is shining.<p>You&#x27;d still have the time the sun is not shining, which would likely be more expensive than before (a gas powered plant would only be running half the time - effectively doubling its capital&#x2F;construction cost per kWh).<p>So you&#x27;d definitely have an improvement on some levels but I&#x27;m not sure that would really help that much.<p>The real big breakthrough would be somme big improvement on storage. I&#x27;m not convinced this will happen quickly (at least not in anyway similar to the declining cost of PV panels). The consumer electronics industry has been paying $$$ for decades for better batteries&#x2F;battery r&amp;d and has seen pretty poor gains.<p>I think Tesla and the electric car manufacturers will definitely rapidly get the price down by say 30% because of economies of scale but will then hit a brick wall as more of the cost becomes raw materials, transport, etc which will set a floor on the cost of batteries.<p>Happy to be proved wrong though :)