'It's offensively cheap': How solar power is quietly becoming bigger than nuclear
1 day ago
Jocelyn Timperley
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(Credit: Getty Images)
**After defying projections, solar's dramatic growth means it is now overtaking nuclear as a global power source. Here are seven reasons for solar's success, and where it might go from here.**
The world's solar power is crossing a threshold. A decade ago, it barely registered on a global scale, providing just 1% of the world's power. In 2026, it will almost certainly increase to 10% of power, and overtake nuclear, a mainstay of electricity since the late 1970s.
"[Solar] generating more electricity than all the world's nuclear power plants is a pretty insane stat, for sure," says Dave Jones, co-founder of Ember.
From China's vast arrays to a recent solar upsurge driven by escalating oil prices, the incredible rise of solar power has defied all projections. Here are seven ways it has become an apparently "unstoppable force" – and what the future looks like from here.
**1. An underestimated force**
"Solar is now the engine of the power transition," says Jan Rosenow, a professor of energy and climate policy at the University of Oxford in the UK.
Solar has become the fastest-growing source of new electricity in history, and by far the largest source of new electricity globally. In 2025, it met three-quarters of the growth in the world's demand for electricity, overtaking wind power generation (wind power is also growing, just a little more slowly).
That's where solar's going, to not just be king of electricity, but king of energy – Dave Jones
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Ember data shows solar electricity generation narrowly surpassing nuclear in 2025. In 2026, it will almost certainly well exceed it (Credit: Ember/BBC)
**2. 'Offensively cheap'**
In particular, a large fall in the price of panels in 2023-24 pushed us into the current era of what Jones calls "offensively cheap" solar. "A panel in itself is just so unbelievably cheap," he says. "It's well under $100 (£75)… and that's going to keep you generating electricity for 30, 40 years without any input at all."
**3. Global uptake**
China is still the world's biggest solar power by far but is by no means the only player.
"Tariffs and other federal policies that constrain renewable energy growth are certainly expected to raise costs and slow expansion relative to what we otherwise would have seen," says Alicia Zhao, an expert in US mitigation pathways at the University of Maryland.
"However, economics are a key part of why solar has been able to grow so quickly. Even with rising costs, solar is still one of the cheapest sources of new power in the US. And it is getting built regardless of political lines."
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China's internal solar boom is now slowing down, but its cheap solar exports to other countries are still increasing (Credit: Getty Images)
In Australia, over four million homes now have rooftop solar: well over a third of all households.
**4. Unreliable fossil fuels**
"What's really incredible in Pakistan is… generally most of the solar boom has been out of people's pockets," says Jones. "People can afford it, without needing to take out loans."
A similar story has been seen in several other "sun belt" countries, from Lebanon to Nigeria. "[Solar] lets households act without waiting for governments or utilities," says Rosenow. "In uncertain times, that speed and independence is extremely valuable."
**5. Battery revolution**
Solar power, of course, can only be produced during the day when the sun is shining. To turn it into electricity that can be dispatched at any time, it needs to be paired with batteries.
Fortunately, batteries have been having their own cost revolution, transforming their ability to support the solar rollout. "Solar plus storage is now routinely cheaper than new fossil plants in sunny regions," says Rosenow. "Batteries have largely solved the daily problem of shifting midday sun into the evening."
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Solar has gone from Pakistan's fifth-largest electricity source in 2023 to its largest in 2025, says Rosenow (Credit: Alamy)
Barriers still remain for longer-term storage of solar across seasons, cloudy periods and monsoon seasons, though, both Rosenow and Jones say. It means the integration of solar into the wider electricity system still matters, says Rosenow.
**6. Electrify everything**
"That's where solar's going, to not just be king of electricity, but king of energy," says Jones.
Still, it all requires a plan, Julia Souder, chief executive of the Long Duration Energy Storage Council, a global executive-led non-profit established at COP26, warned recently. "There is an inherent danger in uncontrolled electrification, and adding massive new loads without built-in flexibility creates a fragile system," she wrote in a blog for international policy network Ren21. "Electrification is not automatically resilient."
The limits on solar are now grids, storage and how fast we electrify demand, says Rosenow – not panels or cost. "The bigger question is no longer whether solar grows but whether our power systems and institutions can keep up."
In the US, data centres and electrification mean power demand is growing for the first time in decades, says Zhao, with energy security a national priority.
"Renewables already make up over 90% of new capacity in the US," she says. "This need for secure, quickly deployable electricity could create a critical opportunity for [further] renewable energy growth even without support from the current federal government."
**7. Expanding tech**
They have now been approved in several other countries and US states including California.
Meanwhile, agrivoltaics, which combines food production and solar panels, is being touted as a solution to concerns in some areas about the land use of solar.
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In Kentucky, US, a solar ranch pays a local farmer to graze his sheep among its solar panels, producing pasture-fed meat while keeping grass and weeds down (Credit: Getty Images)
**What's next for solar**
In 2026, the world's solar capacity will go on rising, but the rate of expansion may slow down for the first time ever, says Jones.
This is down to China: last summer, it changed its regime for managing and supporting new solar installations, leading to a burst of installations in 2025 to fall under the old price regime. Elsewhere, it's a different picture. "If you exclude China, there's more panels being installed this year than last year," says Jones.
"Wherever grid power is costly and unreliable, the economics keep pulling people towards solar," says Rosenow. "There is one caveat: if Chinese solar panels are difficult to import this will not happen at speed."
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But the solar success story shows we are also making progress in ways that were never anticipated. A decade ago, "no one was getting close to expecting that to happen", says Jones, noting that the growth in clean electricity has directly translated to fewer coal plants being built.
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