Solar Power

Since then, solar technology has developed, and solar photovoltaic panels which convert the Sun’s energy directly into low-carbon electricity are commonplace around the world. Most are made primarily of crystalline silicon. This type of panel can be spotted all over the UK, including at the site of the Science Museum Group’s vast object storage facility in Wiltshire. Alongside sheep, native woodlands, and a diverse array of birds, bats, reptiles and insects, the site is also home to one of the country’s largest solar farms.

The more solar panels, the greater the area that can be covered, and so installations are easily scalable to fit in a wide range of settings. You can have as many or as few panels as you need. You can have solar panels as small as a credit card or one the size of a door on the roof of your home, all the way through to having millions of panels supplying low-carbon electricity in an industrial solar farm.

Science Museum Group collection

Swathes of land across the world are already home to large-scale solar farms, with more needed to meet global energy targets. In 2023, Bhadla Solar Park in the Thar Desert in India was the largest such installation in the world, containing over 10 million solar panels. 

Science Museum Group

A key aspect of the energy transition is the move away from fire and towards electricity. Fossil fuels like coal and gas need to be burned, sometimes directly, as in a gas hob in a kitchen, or in a coal-fired power station to drive a turbine to produce electricity. But electricity produced from a renewable energy source like solar does not require anything to be burned, and therefore does not release carbon dioxide (although fossil fuels might be burned to make a solar panel). 

Moving electricity around to where it is needed requires grids, and these will need to be improved and expanded to accommodate a greater reliance on renewable energy sources like solar. In some places, massive electrical grids transport solar energy thousands of miles. In others, especially where large grids don’t yet exist, people are developing small-scale solar farms that respond to the needs of local communities. Both approaches to energy distribution will be crucial to meet future global needs. 

Science Museum Group Collection

UK company Xlinks has ambitious plans to lay an undersea cable 3,800 kilometres along the relatively shallow waters of the continental shelf, connecting solar farms in Morocco’s renewable-energy-rich region of Guelmim-Oued Noun to Devon, in the UK. The solar energy captured in Morocco would then be sold to Britain's National Grid as a low-carbon source of electricity. 

In contrast to global grid projects, people around the world have also come up with innovative solutions to provide off-grid solar electricity. In rural Mozambique people can charge their mobile phones at a structure called the Solar Giraffe – and it costs them nothing.  

Carlos Morgado Foundation

Harnessing solar power this way is important because, according to the World Bank, only 7.9% of the population in rural areas of Mozambique had access to electricity in 2021. Illustrated instructions printed on posters and T-shirts enable people of all ages and literacy levels to quickly understand how the Solar Giraffe works. 

Carlos Morgado Foundation

Reeddi capsules are portable batteries that are charged using solar power and then rented by people and businesses in Lagos, Nigeria, to power devices such as TVs, laptops or lights. This affordable energy solution directly reduces the need for diesel generators, which release carbon dioxide. 

Science Museum Group Collection

Some countries around the world are undergoing a rapid increase in energy demand as they make up for an unjust historic imbalance of wealth. Traditionally high-income households consume more energy than low-income ones, and solar offers a way to make up for this imbalance without the downside of the industrial revolution: carbon emissions. Companies such as Reeddi can help to meet growing demand with low-carbon energy.  

Solar is on track to become the main source of the world’s energy by 2050, and renewables like solar are already cheaper than fossil fuels. Improvements to current solar panel technology, such as the introduction of new materials like perovskites, could make them more efficient, too.  

Perovskites consist of atoms and molecules arranged in a certain crystal structure. They are useful for many reasons, including that they can absorb and emit light and so can be used in the manufacture of solar panels. In 2020, the UK company Oxford Photovoltaics produced a tandem silicon-perovskite cell which converted nearly 30% of solar energy into electricity. (In contrast, standard silicon cells convert on average 15–20% and have an upper limit conversion rate of around 26%.)