Limit search to available items
Book Cover
E-book
Author Nemet, Gregory F., author

Title How solar energy became cheap : a model for low-carbon innovation / Gregory F. Nemet
Published London ; New York, NY : Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2019

Copies

Description 1 online resource
Contents Answer -- Creating a technology -- Scientific origins -- US technology push -- Building a market -- Japanese niche markets -- German demand pull -- Making it cheap -- Chinese entrepreneurs -- Local learning -- Doing it again -- Solar as a model to follow -- Applying the model -- Accelerating innovation
Summary Solar energy is a substantial global industry, one that has generated trade disputes among superpowers, threatened the solvency of large energy companies, and prompted serious reconsideration of electric utility regulation rooted in the 1930s. One of the biggest payoffs from solar's success is not the clean inexpensive electricity it can produce, but the lessons it provides for innovation in other technologies needed to address climate change. Despite the large literature on solar, including analyses of increasingly detailed datasets, the question as to how solar became inexpensive and why it took so long still remains unanswered. Drawing on developments in the US, Japan, Germany, Australia, and China, this book provides a truly comprehensive and international explanation for how solar has become inexpensive. Understandingthe reasons for solar's success enables usto take full advantage of solar's potential. It can also teach us how to support other low-carbon technologies with analogous properties, including small modular nuclear reactors and direct air capture. However, the urgency of addressing climate change means that a key challenge in applying the solar model is in finding ways to speed up innovation. Offering suggestions and policy recommendations for accelerated innovation is another key contribution of this book. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of energy technology and innovation, climate change and energy analysis and policy, as well as practitioners and policymakers working in the existing and emerging energy industries
Notes "Earthscan from Routledge."
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher
Subject Solar energy industries -- Government policy
Photovoltaic power generation -- Cost effectiveness
Renewable energy sources -- Cost effectiveness
Solar Energy -- economics
Renewable Energy -- economics
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Real Estate -- General.
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Industries -- Energy Industries.
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Environmental Economics.
NATURE -- Ecology.
Photovoltaic power generation -- Cost effectiveness
Renewable energy sources -- Cost effectiveness
Solar energy industries -- Government policy
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2020693894
ISBN 9780367136604
0367136600
9780429640681
0429640684
9780429643859
0429643853
9780429637513
0429637519