How solar could spark a clean?energy transition through transformative innovation—creative
financing, revolutionary technologies and flexible energy systems.
Solar energy, once a niche application for a limited market, has become the cheapest and fastest?growing
power source on earth. What's more, its potential is nearly limitless—every hour the sun beams down more
energy than the world uses in a year. But in Taming the Sun, energy expert Varun Sivaram warns that the
world is not yet equipped to harness erratic sunshine to meet most of its energy needs. And if solar's current
surge peters out, prospects for replacing fossil fuels and averting catastrophic climate change will dim.
Innovation can brighten those prospects, Sivaram explains, drawing on first-hand experience and original
research spanning science, business and government. Financial innovation is already enticing deep pocketed
investors to fund solar projects around the world, from the sunniest deserts to the poorest
villages. Technological innovation could replace today's solar panels with coatings as cheap as paint and
employ artificial photosynthesis to store intermittent sunshine as convenient fuels. And systemic innovation
could add flexibility to the world's power grids and other energy systems so they can dependably channel
the sun's unreliable energy.
Unleashing all this innovation will require visionary public policy: funding researchers developing next generation
solar technologies, refashioning energy systems and economic markets and putting together a
diverse clean energy portfolio. Although solar can't power the planet by itself, it can be the centerpiece of a
global clean energy revolution.
