The Dodge Ram is a pickup truck, usually used for hauling things or towing. The podcast mentions it in connection with government rules and guidance, which can affect what vehicles people choose. The key idea is that policy can shape vehicle use and buying decisions.
Capital costs are the upfront money required to build an asset—here, a solar farm or a gas power station. The speaker contrasts these upfront costs with ongoing operating costs (like fuel payments for gas).
A gas power station is an electricity plant that generates power by burning natural gas. Unlike solar, it typically has ongoing fuel costs, which is why the speaker emphasizes “keep paying for all of the costs” and the gas bill.
The Straits of Hormuz is an important shipping route. It’s often mentioned because disruptions there can affect energy supplies, so the host is asking if it impacts solar and battery deliveries too.
A supply chain is the path a product takes—from raw materials to the factory to shipping to you. The point here is that solar panel deliveries can take alternate routes.
Payback is how long it takes before the money you save on electricity covers what you spent to install the system. Cheaper installation usually means you break even sooner.
The grid is the big electricity network that supplies power to buildings. If it can’t keep up or prices rise, people may choose to generate their own power with things like solar panels.
Rooftop solar means putting solar panels on a house or building roof to make electricity. If your system makes more power than you use, the extra can sometimes be sent to the grid to reduce your bill.
A feed-in tariff is a government program that pays you a fixed price for the clean electricity you generate and share with the utility grid. It helps solar systems pay for themselves faster because the income is more predictable.
Solar panels are panels on your roof that turn sunlight into electricity. Instead of getting all your power from the utility, you can make some of your own energy at home.
They’re describing solar and batteries as something like long-term energy infrastructure, not just a gadget. The point is that it can become part of how a country reliably produces and uses electricity.
It means using solar panels plus a battery. Solar makes power during the day, and the battery helps cover times when you need power but the sun isn’t producing.
Honkuk is a tire brand, and the “Ion” model is marketed for electric vehicles. The ad claims it’s designed to be grippy, quiet, efficient, and long-lasting for EVs.
Formula E is a racing series where the cars are fully electric. Companies use it to show their EV parts can perform under demanding conditions.
Term
distributed
“Distributed” just means the power comes from lots of smaller places, not one giant plant. That can help places get electricity without building huge power lines everywhere.
“Rolling blackouts” means the power gets turned off in parts of an area for periods of time. It’s usually done because there isn’t enough electricity to keep everything running all at once.
A “solar lantern” is a small light that charges from the sun and then runs on its own battery. It’s a simple way to get light in places without reliable electricity.
Term
Sub-Saharan Africa
“Sub-Saharan Africa” is a large region in Africa. The speaker is talking about it because many areas there don’t have reliable electricity yet.
Casa Kula is a village in Malawi. The host mentions it as an example of a place that previously had no electricity and is now getting power through solar.
The Mercury Villager is a minivan, meaning it’s a family-oriented vehicle built to fit several people. In the podcast context, it’s referenced while describing something that was told to villagers about paying upfront. The vehicle is part of the background details of that story.
Agri-PV means using solar panels and farming on the same piece of land. The panels can protect plants from harsh weather while still letting farmers grow crops.
A solar carport is basically a parking shelter with solar panels on the roof. It makes electricity and also keeps cars shaded so they don’t get as hot.
“Sun to wheel” means using solar power to directly power vehicles. The goal is to make the energy on-site so you rely less on electricity coming from the power grid.
“End of life” means when the solar panels are no longer worth using. The question is what happens to them then—whether they can be recycled or need special disposal.
Warwick is where the UK’s electricity control center is located in this story. It’s where operators watch the grid and make sure supply matches demand.
A microsecond is a tiny fraction of a second. The host is saying batteries can respond almost instantly, while coal or gas plants take much longer to increase output.
Ramp up means turning a power plant up gradually to produce more electricity. Fossil plants can’t change output instantly, so they take minutes to ramp up.
A gigawatt is a measure of how much power something can produce or deliver. One gigawatt equals one billion watts, which is huge—on the scale of big power plants or large battery systems.
California is used as an example in the discussion. The idea is that with big batteries, solar energy can be stored and used later, even at night.
Place
UK
The UK is mentioned as a leader in how it encourages battery use. The speaker says the UK has rules that make it easier for batteries to help the grid and earn revenue for doing so.
The wholesale market is the “big trading” level for electricity. Instead of buying power retail, utilities and companies trade electricity in large quantities, and batteries can earn money by helping supply it when needed.
Company
UK National Energy System operator
This is the organization that helps run the UK’s electricity system. The speaker is saying it has set things up so batteries can participate in the markets that keep the grid reliable.
A rapid charger is a public EV charger that charges your car faster than most home charging. It uses higher power so you can add more battery energy in less time.
The Dodge Charger is a large car made for everyday driving, with versions that are built to feel fast and powerful. In the podcast context, it’s brought up while talking about charging quickly in France and how expensive that can be. The main point is how charging costs can change how people plan trips.
Electricity prices can be set in short time chunks, like every half hour. So if expensive power sources are needed during that window, prices can jump for that period.
They’re talking about making home electricity bills less tied to the global gas price. If the grid relies more on renewables (and storage), gas becomes less of the “price setter.”
Energy resilience means the power system can handle problems without failing—like supply disruptions or sudden price spikes. It’s improved by having more than one kind of power source and enough backup/storage.
Short duration storage is basically battery backup meant for short periods. It helps smooth out the ups and downs of solar and wind so the grid stays stable.
A diesel generator is a backup machine that makes electricity using diesel fuel. People use it when the main power goes out, but it can be dirty and polluting.
The Global Solar Council is a group that works to help solar power spread and to solve problems that slow it down. The speaker mentions it to explain their job and mission.
Data centers are big buildings full of computers that power online services. They use a huge amount of electricity, so the discussion connects them to solar and battery backup.
Import duties are taxes on products when they’re shipped into a country. If the duties on solar equipment are low or zero, solar panels and systems cost less to buy and install.
“Red tape” means annoying bureaucracy—extra forms, rules, and delays. In this case, it’s about the paperwork and approvals that can make solar installation more difficult.
Balcony solar means putting small solar panels on a balcony (or similar spot) instead of a full roof. It’s meant for apartment buildings where you don’t have easy access to install big solar arrays.
Sunsave is a solar company that helps people get solar panels installed and then provides electricity from that system. The idea is to make solar easier to get without paying everything upfront.
Solar City is a solar company that can install panels for you and then provide electricity from those panels. It’s mentioned as an option that can lower the upfront cost for homeowners.
Solar rooftops are solar panels installed on the roofs of homes or buildings. They generate electricity where you live or work, instead of at a distant power plant.
LIVE
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Everything Electric podcast. We're talking
solar today, big time. We're doing a lot of talk about solar. You will cover most of the
things I wanted to mention, but one of them that we forgot to mention in this podcast,
which I think is just one of those statistics that shows that things are changing very,
very fast. There were 27,000 solar installations completed in the UK this year. We're talking
rooftop solar, 27,000, and it's only June, so we're halfway through the year. It is
extraordinary how quickly this is happening, but that's just in the UK. What's happening around
the world with solar installations and solar technology, and in particular solar and batteries,
is genuinely shifting the dial much faster than people expected and often not driven by a kind of
government legislative framework or instructions from the top or the desire to force people
ram the solar down their throat. It's exactly the opposite. People are seeing that the fuel
supply, like fossil fuel supply, is unreliable and expensive. Those are the two really important
things we need to remember about fossil fuels. It is unreliable and very expensive, and it always
will be, and it's only going to get more volatile and more unreliable. What people are doing around
the world for no reason at all other than it makes sense economically is they are adopting solar at
rates that we are just dizzying. What we needed to do was talk to someone who's got a bit of a
grasp of the global situation as regards solar. I chose to speak to the very wonderful Sonja
Dunlop, who is the CEO of the Global Solar Council. She is the guest on today's podcast.
Before we dive into that, please do subscribe to this channel. Please do subscribe to
Everything Electric Tech and Everything Electric Cars, because we are covering the enormous changes
that are taking place around the world and around the corner. Please do tell your mates about it,
and please welcome to the Everything Electric podcast, Sonja Dunlop.
Our three free YouTube channels on EVs and Clean Energy Tech are funded by our fun-packed
test-drive-tastic events in the north, west and greater London, and our events down under.
Next up, Everything Electric heads to Cheltenham and then Twickenham. All events include a B2B EV
day and commercial vehicles too. And now, back to the episode. So, Sonja, thank you so much for
joining us today. I think we're at a point where the topic that you're involved with is absolutely
critical and having an enormous global impact. Like, it's really accelerating to such a degree.
So, can you quickly explain what it is you do and who it is you're working with and what you do?
Absolutely. So, my name's Sonja Dunlop. I'm the CEO of the Global Solar Council, where headquartered
here in London that we are the Worldwide Industry Association for Solar and Battery Storage. So,
we represent and unite the whole of the global industry from every part of the sort of supply
chain, from manufacturing all the way down to local rooftop installers putting solar on your roof,
or indeed the local shop selling balcony solar all over the world. And so, we're really the
peak industry association representing originally just solar and now we've added battery storage too.
Right. I mean, the two seem to be going hand in hand more and more often, don't they?
I mean, can you give any sort of, you know, global picture stats of the increases? Because
what's so obvious is that there's been really big shifts in it. I mean, and I'm just thinking,
sort of, if you go over the last 20 years, when I first put solar panels on my roof,
probably more than 20 years ago, and they were then really expensive, it was a really exclusive
thing. You had to do all sorts of clever financial models to make it even plausible and you got
phenomenal feed in tariffs and all that. The geek maybe. Because I was like, there's two ways of
describing an early adopter, a wonderful person that's forward thinking or an absolute idiot.
It's one of the two. I think I was the latter. But, you know, I was very interested in it. But
that has changed so much now. The cost of, I can't remember how much the cost of panels has dropped,
but it's a lot. The cost of both solar panels and battery storage have come down about 90%
in the last 15 to 20 years. And that is part of why, like you say, we're kind of at the dawn of a
solar era, which was actually a phrase that the Economist magazine coined, we are now the fastest
growing source of electricity in the history of civilization since the beginning of the industrial
revolution. And the cheapest source of electricity in the history of civilization. And that means
that if you look at the numbers, you know, about 75% of the new electricity generation that's being
added to the grid every year now worldwide is solar plus battery storage. And that is incredible
position to be in. And it's an honor and a privilege to be leading the Global Industry
Association, which is, of course, also the organization that kind of does the global
thought leadership on the top of worldwide. And I mean, it is that combination, isn't it? I think
even five years ago, the notion of having a battery was still, like early rooftops, although it was
a kind of bit of an exclusive battery nerd, you know, energy nerd thing. And that has become, I
mean, in Australia, as a country I'm very familiar with, you know, battery in your house is just
normal. It's like having light bulbs or a kettle. It's not a big, it's not a weird thing. It's
an incredible huge uptake of battery of domestic batteries in Australia. Yeah, yeah. Also because
you need those batteries to complement the solar, right? It's the combination of solar plus batteries,
which is just really transformational, transformational for regular hardworking families and
households, but also for the wider electricity grid. And that's why Australia, having now
well over 4000000 households with solar on their roofs, having got to days where over 100%
of the electricity for parts of Australia is being generated from regular rooftop household solar,
they've now started a big battery program in order to pair the two better and to really get
the benefit of the combination of both. Yeah. And so what about, I mean, because I like the fact
that you deal with all aspects of this, because, you know, anyone can sort of go, oh, why have
they put solar panels on the, on that field over there? Well, there's hugely complex financial
arrangements that are involved in that as well. I mean, could you go into the sort of finance of,
you know, how is it now cheaper to build a solar farm than it would have been 10 years ago, for
example? Oh, hugely so, hugely so. So the cost of the actual batteries and the solar panels have
decreased. The batteries, for example, have decreased by 70% since only 2017. But also the
cost of a total installation or a solar farm has also come down massively. I think the way to think
about it is that this really is the energy of today and the energy of the future, right? This
is the, that combination of solar and batteries is the way that we as at every level, so this
applies at household level at for large businesses, say large warehouses, for large scale, you know,
solar farms, applying vast amounts of electricity into the grid. This is how we're going to get our
cheap, reliable and forward looking energy going into the future. And really interestingly,
we're now at a real tipping point because it now costs as much to build a typical solar farm
in terms of the initial capital costs, as it costs to build a gas power station. And of course,
the thing is with a gas power station, you've still got to keep paying for all of the costs.
Keep paying the gas. Exactly. Keep paying the gas bill essentially. And so suddenly,
just in terms of the upfront cost, you know, the comparison between the two is not looking
good for the other side. And that's why you're seeing more and more countries around the world,
especially in response to the Iran energy crisis, switching to solar and storage
and other renewables as well. Yeah. I mean, that's a, you know, that's a very easy and I think
perfectly legitimate criticism, you know, that, you know, liquid and fuels and gas,
you know, are less reliable in geopolitical terms because stuff like that can go,
you know, ridiculous wars taking place. You know, they're holding up the supply. I just
wanted to quickly, it might be a bit of a side note, but has there been disruption to the
distribution of solar panels, for example, and batteries because of what's going on in the
Straits of Hormuz? Actually, no. So the solar panels that are coming from China say into the
UK and Europe actually tend to go around the bottom of Africa, around Africa basically,
so they're not affected at all with the crisis in the strait of Hormuz. We also, because it's,
you know, you can fit 750 solar panels into a typical shipping container and that shipping
container, ships, but it can also go on trains or lorries. So we're quite flexible in our supply
chain. There are already some shipments that are coming across the old Silk Road, across Eurasia.
Right, right. In my land. Exactly. But it's quite a nimble global supply chain. And we're also
seeing more and more factories being set up all over the world in the Middle East and in the Gulf,
in the US, across Europe, especially in Hungary actually, and across Southeast Asia as well.
And so it's quite a nimble global supply chain that actually has the ability to double or triple
almost overnight. So we're ready and waiting for the big surge that we are just starting to see now
in response to the Romanian crisis. And that's what's so exciting, really. Yeah. And so that's
quite good news. I didn't know about that about there is, so there is a manufacturing-based
four solar panels within Europe now. Because I mean, the first panels I had were made in Germany,
but the panels I've got on now are made in China. So that's the change that's happened.
And you know, we cannot scale this without China, right? China has huge economies of scale and can
produce really high quality products at an incredible speed. I was in Shanghai just last week,
actually, at the biggest salt energy industry conference in the world, which, believe it or not,
has 800,000 people at this exhibition. Oh, my God. It's mind-boggling, really.
Learning about this. But ultimately, this is about energy security and energy resilience for
countries all over the world. And there's been about 40 countries, especially in Southeast Asia,
but in response to the Strait of Hormuz crisis, have come out saying, right, we are going to switch
to homegrown solar storage, wind, renewable energy as a response to this. We don't want to be held
hostage to whatever the latest geopolitical crisis is. And the key thing is that if you're
reliant on oil and gas or diesel, you're having to import new supplies in every 25 days. With solar,
you can lock in at a low price for 25 years. And you are safe with that low energy cost
for 25 years. And that's the big difference. I mean, I think it is fine. It does feel like,
because I've been banging on about this for decades, that you can only use the fuel we import once,
which is a sort of absurd thing to say. But when you have a container with 750 solar panels on
and you import that, there's a cost to that. There's the transportation, the environment,
all those things count. But you don't use those solar panels once. You use them for 25 plus years.
I mean, it's just a completely different economic outlook. And I think that's
just starting to dawn on people because we can't... I think my whole worldview changed when I made a
TV series about how things get made. And I spent two days at an oil refiner. And I'm talking 25
years ago, I filmed this recently. And I was amazing. The technology is amazing. It's incredible
what we do with a tanker load of crude oil from Saudi Arabia. It's remarkable. It's extraordinary.
It's not just petrol for cars or diesel for trucks. It is everything. So many...
So much more. Yeah. But I couldn't help thinking all the time I was there. One thing,
which I think people don't know, and we're going slightly off topic, but it is relevant,
is the amount of electricity that is used by an oil refinery, which is equivalent to a large city.
That's how it was explained to me by the engineers that were there. And we've only got three big
refineries in the UK. And this was one of them. They are enormous facilities. But also, that stuff,
as I could see where it was going into the tanks, and then it was going to go down into
the pipelines and be distributed, that only gets used once. I did that. It struck me then,
and we've got to get another ship in, and another ship, and another ship all the time.
Adjust for inflation, the cost of fossil fuel-based electricity or fossil fuel energy has actually
basically remained the same for the last 200 years. Whereas because solar and battery storage
are a technology, not a fuel, because they're a piece of infrastructure, not just something that
you burn, like you say. The cost keeps coming down and over time as we get better
and better at designing these systems and making them. So it is a fundamentally different way of
generating your energy. And if you're a household sitting at home faced with yet another sky-high
energy bill, whether that be for your power or your gas, if you are lucky enough to have
a spare £1,000 to put into balcony solar or a spare couple grand to put into a rooftop solar
system, you're essentially protecting you and your family from future price rises to come.
And that is what that's the way entire country should be thinking, but that's also how every
energy consumer is already thinking from now on. If there's one topic in this area that I really
am very un... I don't know about is balcony solar. This has really appeared very recently.
In crude terms, you could hang a solar panel off the balcony of your apartment
with a wire that goes into a plug socket in your apartment and that electricity goes into your
ring main and powers things in your house. Is that correct? And that's what's called either
balcony solar or plug-in solar, but it's actually that plug-in element that's transformational,
because you can literally like plugging a kettle into your socket. That's all you need to do.
You don't need an electrician in to come and do that for you. And so, yes, it can be off a
balcony if you have one. I've seen it done outside of windows as well, if you have the right setup,
or of course in your back garden, in your front garden, wherever you have a bit of space. And
this is anywhere in the world, of course. And plug-in solar, which ideally you combine with
a small battery storage, battery of maybe the size of, I don't know, an old-fashioned radio.
That's what's really being transformational in terms of allowing everyone the ability to
access solar, no matter how much your budget is, no matter whether you're going to stay in your home
for the next 25 years or not. Maybe you're planning to move in a couple years. Of course,
if you've got balcony solar, you can take it with you. Absolutely, you can take it with you. And
that solar panel will keep going for about 25-odd years. So, it really is a worthwhile investment
and is a way of protecting yourself against ever-increasing energy bills.
Right. And they've been in use in other countries. I mean, it feels like a very new thing in the
UK, but they've been in use in other countries for some time, have they not?
Yeah, yeah. So, Germany is really the leader in this space. So, Germany has about, well,
well over a million balcony solar systems installed already, about half a million this year alone,
of course, as people have faced with ever-increasing energy bills.
The Benelux countries, so Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria,
lots of countries across Europe have started doing it and indeed have many different states in
America. So, Vermont, Virginia, California, Utah, even parts of America, you wouldn't expect it.
The key thing that we need for balcony solar and what we are about to get as of this summer here
in the UK is the permission that it doesn't need an electrician to install it, right?
If you have to call a Sparky out, if you have to call an electrician out to install it and
just plug it into your wall, it becomes way too expensive. It's not interesting anymore.
If you are allowed to just go down to Lidl or to Iceland or to Beanyu or to Ikea and other
retailers are available and just pick up a system yourself, you know, carry it home and
plug it in yourself, then suddenly we're really talking in terms of the payback and how much
money you can save. And so, that's the key change that we are pushing for in every single
around the world. And of course, in developing countries in Africa and Southeast Asia and so on,
you know, people just take power into their own hands and install these things themselves
if they want to. And that's why, in many ways, we're seeing in some countries much faster take
up of rooftop solar there than we are indeed in other, in parts of the global north as we
developed. I mean, I think the big story, which I just think is extraordinary because it's kind
of come out of the blue and it hasn't been because the government has decided to do anything. But
in Pakistan, they're kind of on a par with the entirety of Europe. They have bought so many
solar panels from China. And I bet those are probably imported over land. I mean, that could
very easily be the case, I don't know. But I mean, it's quite interesting because generally,
you know, in Europe, certainly the experience and in the United States, it will be the government
does a mandate where you get some money back or you get a feed in tariff or all the kind of
ways that we've used to encourage people to uptake solar in the last 25, 30 years.
No one's done that in Pakistan. There's been no mention of it, but everyone's gone. I want to
put solar on my roof. There's an amazing, like Google Earth photograph of the same section of a
city five years ago, no solar. Now, every single building in that picture has got solar panels on
the roof. And there are similar photos like that from all over the world. Actually, you should see
cities in Syria, where they have loaded accounts as they do in Pakistan. And every single inch of
roof space is covered in solar panels. What happened in Pakistan was actually just, it
completely took the government and the grid operated by surprise. But suddenly power prices that,
you know, the final, the energy bills went up suddenly. And people realized, hold on a minute,
if I just buy myself a few solar panels and a battery, I can, you know, I'll get my money back
within a year, you know, or so. And then I'll be continuing to generate for 20, 25 years after
that. And that's why we're now at the stage where six out of 10 homes in Pakistan have solar on the
roof. Why they've generated about half a million jobs, because of course it is a labor intensive
process on a roof and adding it. So it generates a lot of jobs. And they have now saved themselves
$12 billion of fossil fuel imports now, since they went solar. And the amazing thing is that
this hasn't come, this hasn't come in the form of grants or finance from the world. And it hasn't
come in the form of some kind of top down strategy. This is the people of Pakistan taking the energy
into their own hands and getting $17 billion of their own hard earned cash and putting it into
what is essentially an energy infrastructure asset class in the Pakistani grid now. And
fossil fuel demand is now down 40%, 40% because people have switched to solar and storage. And
so what we're now doing is making sure that the Pakistani grid operator learns from other
grid operators around the world, such as in Australia, on how to run a grid with such a
high share of solar and storage. And we think the Pakistani story could well be replicated in many
other countries around the world within fairly short order. And that is really exciting.
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I mean, it is so, it's kind of become incredibly obvious. I mean, one of the,
a very good friend of mine has spent a lot of time working in Africa. I've never been to the
areas he's been to, I've been to South Africa and Morocco. So I've been to the middle bit.
But what he said was there isn't any infrastructure to, for distributing electricity on a large
scale in many countries, you know, the cities have it. But if you were to go out there, and he said,
that's where he, he, it's not his business. He's got nothing to do with this, but he just saw.
Oh my God, they've got, there's a village here, and they've got a little solar array outside the
village with the battery in it. And so everyone's got electric light and electric cooking, where
they never did. And, you know, that impact is so hard to, to focus on because it's not
one big solid, you know, power station that generates, it's distributed over the whole country.
And it's, and it's sort of, in a sense, unregulated very much like in Pakistan.
You know, it's just happened because people have worked out, oh, this is, we can have electricity,
we can have lights on and we're not paying for wires that come hundreds of miles across the
country, which, you know, is exactly, exactly. And, and, you know, it's very easy for us in the
UK to take electricity for granted. We take it for granted every time we flick the switch,
the lights go on. But of course, in many parts of the world, well, some parts of the world,
they have no electricity at all. Many, many parts of the world have constant rolling blackouts.
And that's why I just, I've got one here on my desk, you know, little solar lanterns like
this with a solar panel, one battery inside and a little light on the other side can be
absolutely transformational for people and means that we don't have to build out massive grid
pylons all the way out to every single village across Sub-Saharan Africa. We can do it in a
much more bottom up and indeed probably much cheaper way by just putting a couple solar
panels on each house and putting a small solar array just outside the village and,
and combining that with batteries, of course. And we estimate now that about 550 million people
around the world, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa, use off grid solar and storage at least once a
week. So even if they don't have it on their own home, they walk to the local village and charge
their mobile phone with thanks to a solar system and a battery. And, and just imagine how, how
transformational that is for people's lives and how we really can now dream of delivering full
energy access to every single person in the world if we just scaled up the rollout of solar and
storage in these villages. The village of Casa Kula in Malawi used to have no electricity at all
and a fantastic charity called Solar Aid came along. It was founded by Jeremy Leggett, actually,
who set up Solar Century in the UK and they came along and they said, right, we're rolling out
solar as a service. We're going to put solar panels, a battery and a light bulb and every
single house in this village. And they said to the villagers, you don't need to pay for up front.
You don't even have to pay us a monthly fee. Just pay us for every kilowatt hour of electricity you
use. Pay as you go solar as a service. If you don't have the money, switch it off. You won't pay a dime.
And it's that kind of business model that really means that we can spread this to every corner
of the world. And that's really exciting. But then if we come back to this country, you know,
certainly been quite a lot of talk recently. I've sort of been made aware of, you know,
they're ruining our farmland. They're covering our decent farmland in solar panels. I mean,
my experience of like really being in the weeds with a big solar farm was in Australia, which was
and it was on a scale that we cannot imagine in the UK. I mean, it covered an area about the
size of Kent, you know, it was huge. But it had, well, it had, it was before they put new solar
panels on, they were about six and a half thousand sheep. It's a sheep farm in New South Wales. There
are now six and a half thousand sheep and a million solar panels, and they get on fine. You know,
but that isn't taking out, you know, that land wasn't plowed and planted before the solar panels
are there. It was grazing land. It's not good enough soil to farm in that way. But it does,
you know, and occasionally you'll drive along a road or a motorway in the UK and you'll see,
you know, a big field covered in solar. And then when you do see a big warehouse
roof that doesn't have solar on, I mean, that makes me angry. Why the hell haven't they got
solar there? But I mean, what is your opinion of that? And, you know, if you, you know,
how much land is actually being taken up by solar in the UK? Yeah, I mean, look, we need both, right?
We need loads of rooftop solar on every single warehouse and building and so on. And we need
those ground-mounted solar farms. And like you say, it is perfectly possible for a piece of land
to both be a solar farm and a farm farm, if I can put it that way, and to have that dual harvest.
And it's not just sheep grazing or cattle grazing or whatever it might be. It's also actually crops.
So it's growing, there's all sorts of crops that you can grow very well under solar panels,
whether it be blueberries or asparagus or vineyards, actually, or often, you know,
slightly more delicate crops that need that protection and need that careful sort of tender
loving care underneath. And so that's why we're seeing this fast emerging area called agri-pv or
agrivoltaics, which is essentially just the combination of agriculture and solar,
where farmers are starting to realise that they can actually protect their crops in a very,
in a much more efficient way by using solar panels than the traditional methods. And indeed,
you know, in terms of cherry tomatoes, which are sometimes damaged by hail storms or extreme
weather events or so on, you know, it can be very, very effective to add solar to that.
So we've, we've, we're just starting a new programme of work in terms of working with farmers
to figure out what they need all over the world and making sure that the land retains its tax
privileges and its whatever sort of special status it used to have as agricultural land,
because it is still agricultural land. And raising awareness amongst policymakers as well,
that if they encourage that dual use of land, it can actually be a win-win both in terms of power
generation and in terms of protecting the farmers, both from damage to their crops, but actually also
keeping the farmers going as a business, right? Because farming is not easy. And, and having
that extra income stream for the farmer can be make or break. Yes, yeah. I mean, no, I absolutely
agree. You know, I mean, it is, for someone who is disturbed by it, it's a very simple thing to do
is just check out how much land, farmland in the UK is used by golf courses. And I'm not anti-golf,
and I don't want people to stop playing golf, and I don't want to ban golf. But, you know,
it is worth doing comparison because it is a fraction of the amount of land we're going to,
where we'll ever use for solar that is used for golf courses. And it just, it just puts it in a
perspective. I think one of the other, other things which you'll, I know you'll know
about, but whether that's a potential, a notion that's happening in the UK, because I don't know
that. You know, I'm actually traveling through France quite soon. It's very obvious that very
large car parks at things like shopping malls, or, you know, out of town supermarkets, all their
car parks, all of them are covered in solar panels. And I think there's a law in France,
over a certain amount of spaces you have to put solar in, which is just pretty safe. And that's
a country that is much less reliant on solar because of their nuclear capacity. You know,
they don't, but their solar, we'll maybe discuss that later. But, but that, is that something
that you think might happen in the UK? And it should happen in every country, but.
Yeah. You know, this is the most versatile and modular technology you can imagine.
You can put solar pretty much anywhere, right? And, and yes, and solar, and what are called
solar carports or putting rooftop solar canopies on car parks makes total sense, especially as you
know, now that, you know, electric vehicles are growing massively and we're starting to electrify
all forms of transport. And, and so having that sort of sun to wheel ecosystem right there in
the car park means also you don't have to rely so much on massive imports from the grid and, and
also shades the vehicles so they don't get so hot, which in the south of France, big problem,
right? So it makes total sense. And carports, it makes sense on buildings, it makes sense,
I think soon on vehicles themselves, actually whether that be trains or
cars or whatever it might be, there's already been a solar powered plane that's flown around the
world. The pulse plane a couple years ago, just showing what might be possible at some point in
the future in terms of aviation, you know, or solar panels this small on the back of a lantern,
right? It's completely versatile and modular. And because it's manufactured, you know, mass
manufactured at scale. And because it becomes so cheap, the opportunities are almost limitless.
And what let's just quick, I'm just going through all the sort of contentious aspects of it. I mean,
the end of life solar panel, what do you do with the end of life with the solar panel? I mean,
I don't know, because I've had them for years and they've not reached their end of life. So
I haven't had to, I've not to face that yet. But I mean, it is the material of the glass,
you know, can be recycled. But what about the other materials on it?
Yeah. And you know, the first solar panels installed in the UK, which was somewhere near
Oxford are actually still going strong about 40 years later. Yes, no. So a solar panel can be 97%
of the materials in there can be fully recycled, fully recycled. So they are totally recyclable.
And what we have to make sure is that there is a recycling system in place that we need to make
sure that there are actual recycling, I don't know, I don't want to call them factories, but
you recycle facilities, facilities that are available and to take them apart and recycle
all the different components. And we have to make sure that there's a system in place so that when
you buy a solar panel, which is in the case in Europe, which is the case in Europe and many
other parts of the world, a very small fee is applied, which will essentially pay for the
recycling at a date. But also, the amazing thing is that as these things have got cheaper and lighter
over the years, you can if you take a solar panel from 25 years ago and recycle it today, you actually
have enough raw material to make 10 of today's solar panels. So that's why we're going to get to
stage pretty soon, let's say roughly around 2040 give or take, where we could in theory end up in
a completely circular industry, where we don't need to mind for any of the raw materials anymore,
we just keep recycling the materials we have in the sort of global solar system as it were.
And same will be true for batteries around that time as well. But we have to make sure that every
single government in the world puts in place a system to make sure that old end of life solar
panels are collected, sent to the national recycling facility or whatever it might be,
and then properly recycled, because of course, there's always going to be
a sort of a misincentive to just throw them on the scrap heap. And we don't want that. And funnily
enough, we always as solar and battery storage, we always come under regular recycling legislation
for electronic equipment and products, right? But because we're a bit different, a typical iPhone
lasts about a year or two, a laptop, maybe a couple years, our product actually lasts 25 to 30
years. And so we're a bit of a misfit in amongst all the laptops and the mobile phones. We often
need something specific just for us to make sure that at the end of the product's life,
we'll still be able to collect it and recycle it. But yeah, the opportunity for a completely
circular solar panel industry worldwide is definitely within our reach.
Right. And I was at a conference, or like an event not long ago, about marine engineering. And there
was a lot of discussion there about the desperate need for the next generation of engineers that
can learn from the current lot. There's a shortage. There's a global shortage of engineers. This was
very specific marine engineering, which included offshore wind, interestingly, but shipping,
all those things. Is there a skill shortage globally in people who are capable of installing
solar panels always? Is the skill level? I think I sort of feel in order to be competent to put a
huge wind turbine in the North Sea, you need some engineering chops. Whereas I could actually
tighten up the bolts that hold a solar panel onto a frame. It's not beyond my skill.
Well, yes, but I wouldn't recommend you climbing up onto your roof. Probably wouldn't particularly.
Don't want to do that. No, it's interesting one. And there is a shortage in offshore wind and in
marine engineering and so on. In solar, to be honest, it's a bit different because
we have about 7.5 million people working in solar and storage worldwide. A huge workforce. It's
the size of the population of the Republic of Ireland. And most of them are local electricians
or local roofers that have just upskilled to be able to add solar to the list of things they offer.
Or local construction or agricultural workers that have gone through a bit of training to
build a solar farm. So in our case, no, there isn't a skill shortage because actually the skills
that you have to add on to the existing workforce are pretty limited. And it isn't that complicated.
It's certainly not as complicated as standing up a massive wind turbine out in the North Sea.
What we are very aware of is that especially when it comes to solar farm construction,
we need to make sure that the men and women who arrive on site do have the proper health and safety
and technical training to be able to build a solar farm, partly because you want it to
perform to spec, partly because you don't want any unnecessary accidents. And so we have launched
the Global Solar Training Standard and will soon be expanding that to battery storage to fix that.
On the rooftop side, it really varies from country to country, right? It's really the local roofing
and electrician workforce that sort of upskills itself quite easily in becoming the solar workforce.
And so you've just got to make sure that the local regulations in terms of safety when you have
people up on roofs are fully adhered to. And we're thinking about doing something in that regard
as well. And you've got to make sure that the systems are installed safely, that there isn't a
risk of any kind of things falling off and so on. So they need to be done properly. But no,
we do not have a global skills shortage. And we don't foresee that happening anytime in the future.
So yes, one of the problems that I had when I installed a second battery and more solar at
my house was the local, I think the DNO is a district network operator in the UK,
sort of panic. This is a few years ago, panicked and went, you know, because we're, I'm in a fairly
remote rural area with a sort of 1950s grid connection. So it's probably not, you know,
it's a little bit at the limit of its abilities already. So there's now a lot of electric cars
in the village and a lot of solar. But it's the how the grid, how the grid adapts, you know,
our grid in this country definitely built for big coal burning power plants on the coast,
sent electricity inland. And that's how that's how we all grew up with that. And that obviously
isn't what we need now. I mean, is there a globally are there developments and obviously
discussions around how we adapt our old grid to this new paradigm? Yeah. So there's big discussions
in terms of, you know, how much new grid infrastructure we need to build. And there's a
global commitment to build 25 million kilometers of new grid infrastructure by the end of, yeah,
by the end of this decade, actually, believe it or not. A lot of that will be in the developing
world, right? Although there's also a discussion that how in some countries,
if you're doing it at the grid edge, so in your village, rather than in a big power station,
you actually the amount of grid out grid, you have to build is less, right? The cost of the
grid build out is less. But I think the other big difference is actually in how you operate the grid.
So in the UK, there's a control center in Warwick, which is roughly in the center of the country,
where they have loads of screens and they run the national grid across Great Britain,
and they're constantly monitoring to make sure that demand and supply are in sync with each other.
And when you have a lot of solar, wind, battery storage and so on, the way that central grid
operation command center works is slightly different. And so here, the grid operators that
are very advanced in this, which is essentially the Australians, the Californians, Texas as well,
Germany, and a couple others, the Chinese to some extent, actually, are teaching other grid
operators how it's done. And actually, the UK is at the very cutting edge of this, at the cutting
edge of working out how to manage a grid with a large share, 2000000 solar homes across the
UK now, which at first, when I started in the solar industry, a good 10 or more years ago,
national grid kept saying, it's really funny on a really sunny Sunday, it seems like we just don't
seem to have as much demand as we used to have. And then suddenly the light bulb clicked and they
understood what was going on. But now grid operators are being really clever in factoring in
solar at every size into the way they manage the grid, and being really clever in terms of when
they go out to auction to get those grid stability services they need to maintain a perfectly stable
supply, that they're slightly changing the requirements of what they need so that batteries
can bid in and provide those services as well. And batteries are so fast and so accurate in
providing those grid stability services that it really is changing the way grid operators
all over the world think, because a battery can switch on like that in microseconds, whereas a gas
or coal power station takes a good few minutes, if not 10 or 15 minutes to ramp up. And so that's
the big difference actually that grid operators are experiencing. I mean, there was a fabulous
story from Australia a few years ago now as a friend of mine worked in the grid in Australia,
he's now he's now he doesn't live in Australia anymore, but the discussion that went on on a day
where they nothing happened as far as they were concerned, nothing happened. Then they found out
like 10 minutes later that a large coal burning power plant had gone offline. It had tripped down
for whatever technical reason, but no one noticed. And they went, well, how can we not notice that
was three gigawatts. And that was the first big battery was in South Australia. It kicked in so
fast that none of their sensors picked it up. It was like instantaneous and it kept the no one
had a blackout. Normally that would have caused a rolling blackout across New South Wales, and they
didn't see anything. And that was you just think that is because the that was the big Tesla battery
that was put in in the wind farm in southern. And they the engineers behind that battery didn't
know it would do that. They were surprised when they then discussed it later on, they went, well,
we're glad it did it, but we didn't know it would, you know, we thought it could all
go wrong, you know, they didn't. So it is it is remarkable how the impact that these things are
having that we don't really see. I mean, when I saw the batteries being installed on the solar
farm I visited in Australia last year, it's on such a scale, it's like the size of a large
suburb, you know, which is just batteries. It's a massive, massive installation, which means that
that solar farm sends out electricity 24 hours a day. It's not intermittent.
In California, some say now that solar is now pumping more electricity into the grid at night
than during the day, because so much of that solar is being stored in big battery
farms like that one, you know, big, what they look like just a row of containers, actually.
But what's in there is just absolutely critical to the sort of stability of a
quality grid going forwards. And and the UK is actually at the very forefront cutting
edge of providing those incentives for batteries and also including batteries in the way it runs
its system and allowing batteries to bid in to all the different markets, whether it be the wholesale
market, whether it be the different grid stability services markets. And so the UK National Energy
System operator has a lot to teach the rest of the world on how it's done.
Yeah, which is so good. It's wonderful that we're in that position. I mean, I think the
bone of contention in the UK is that for what for multiplicity of reasons and solar isn't one of them,
we still have very expensive electricity for general consumer, which is heartbreaking. And
I kind of forget about it sometimes because I've got solar, so it's minimized for me,
but I'm still sort of aware of it. But yeah, no. But then I'll go to when I drive in France,
and I use a rapid charger in France, which here costs eye watering amounts of money.
It's cheap as chips. It's the same amount I pay for my electricity at home. And you go,
how is that possible? Why is it so expensive here? I mean, is it that the cost is tied to the cost
of gas? Is that really what is going on? That is what is going on. So for better or worse,
the UK went through a dash for gas on the previous governments and have a lot of gas power generation.
And so our cost of electricity goes up and down with the cost of gas.
And up until now, the UK grid operator has always kept a couple gas power plants running
24 seven to use that in case they need it. And we are now reaching and the thing is,
it's the their cost of operation that determines the electricity price for everyone in half hour,
right in that half hour period. But the good news is that we are now getting close to the point
where the UK grid operator is going to start running the entire UK power grid without any gas
at all on entirely clear power for to start with just 30 minute segments, see how it goes and then
move on from there. And so the more we can completely push those gas power stations out of the system
hour by hour, the more our our wholesale price of electricity will drop and therefore our retail
power prices will drop as well. But you know, this has been a choice of success with successive
governments. We are now switching to solar wind and batteries in a big way and quickly.
But the full we won't reap the benefits of that until we manage to kind of decouple the price
of power that we pay at home at the meter to the price of gas on international markets.
And that's the funny thing that it doesn't matter whether we generate the oil and gas ourselves
or buy it in Qatar or Russia or anywhere else, the price is still set on the global gas market.
And and and we are at the mercy of those of that price. And so we really need to be thinking about
an investment in energy resilience and investment in our energy security is an investment in solar
and storage and renewables, right? And making sure we have both the short duration storage
is what the batteries do, but also long duration storage to get us through the winter, which is
what the pump storage hydro and whale hydro power in Wales and Scotland does are well worth a visit
that. Exactly. And what long duration storage batteries will do for us in the future as well.
And yeah, it's it's we're in it's a real pity that we're in this situation in the UK, you know,
the Netherlands is the same in many other countries across Europe. And the sooner we get out of it,
the better. Yeah. And it is it is amazing how, you know, when you look back at our history,
because that's what I mean, my argument always is that technology is not political, you know,
and this is a really good example. It's it's both main parties in the UK did the dash for gas.
It isn't you can't blame one, you can't go home as a wretched tourist that was the
awful Labour Party. They know they both did it. They both pushed diesel as a clean fuel.
I mean, you know, you go, we need someone in Parliament who's technically literate to go,
no, guys, diesel is not a clean fuel. It's really not. But anyway,
don't want to go off that topic. But I think what's great from your perspective, what I'm
getting from you is, you know, that this technology is being adopted all over the world by completely
different countries with totally different outlooks, with different, you know, facilities
that they have, you know, some of them may have huge amounts of, you know, hydroelectric or
wind or whatever, you know, but you're seeing this is not localized, you know, because often
people go, Well, we're making all this effort, but no one else is doing anything. So why are we
suffering? Not at all. It's such a global phenomenon, I think, isn't it? It really is. I mean, half of
the world's solar and storage deployment rollout at present is in China. So no one can argue that
Chinese aren't doing it. The Indians are building solar farms on a scale that you would not believe
and have a target for 10 million solar homes by the end of next year, by the end of 2020.
Wow. Wow. I mean, they would have had none five years ago or very few, but they may have been
tiny. It's phenomenal what's happening there. In the US, despite what the Trump administration
might be saying, you know, you can rent your roof out to a third party company, they'll come
and put solar on it and they'll sell you the cheaper electricity, which I think is a brilliant
way of doing it. And I'd like to see that in more countries. Again, three quarters of the new
electricity generation capacity being added to the grid in the US every year is solar and battery
storage. You know, these investors, they don't take their investment advice from the Trump,
from the Trump White House. Look at the numbers. They follow the money. They know how to save money
and make money and they just get on with the job. You know, Brazil has gone through a huge solar
and storage household revolution, millions and millions of households there.
You know, Nigeria could be on the cusp of a big, big shift in the way it generates electricity.
Remember in Nigeria, almost every single middle class home has a diesel generator in the back
ready to kick in in the event of a power cut and horribly polluting they are too.
So this is really a global phenomenon that's reaching every tiny Pacific Island, every community.
And that's really exciting. And that's part of why I find my job as the CEO of the Global
Solar Council so incredibly rewarding and why, you know, the team that we have working all over
the world to try and solve the remaining challenges that do stand in our way are so motivated by the
idea that this is literally in some ways the most important technology in the world right now
on a par with maybe artificial intelligence. Yes. Which we haven't mentioned the quite impressive
impact that data centers are having around the world. But I mean, that's maybe another
another topic. But for goodness sake, if you're going to build a massive data center,
put solar on the roof at least, it won't cover your power cut. I mean, I'm sure they've got to
be. It would be insane not to. Yeah, they are. And, you know, solar plus batteries is possibly
the only form of power generation can that can keep up with the data centers that can scale
quickly as the data centers are growing. You know, remember, we've got enough spare factory
capacity to trip double or even triple our production overnight so we can scale as
fast as anyone needs needs us to anywhere in the world. And yes, the data centers that are
especially growing fast in the US, but also in other parts of the world, especially in Spain,
actually, where there's a lot of solar and so they do have very low wholesale and retail
and Spain has actually been rather insulated from the global oil and gas price rises that
we've seen from the straight up hormones, partly because they've got so much solar and wind.
But, you know, these data centers are being built all over the world. And in many ways,
the only power generation source that can really scale as fast and keep up with them
is solar plus storage. In the US, a lot of them are also building gas turbines.
They love their gas turbines.
But, you know, we'll see what happens when they get the gas bill in a couple years.
But that's just quickly. I'd just like to go back to Spain because that was on my list and I've
forgotten. But the most recent stuff I've read about Spain is, you know, they were
badly affected by increases in gas prices. Their electricity was in like ours was tied to the gas
but they have decoupled. They've now got the cheapest electricity or nearly the cheapest
electricity in Europe, which is extraordinary. It's amazing. And that's because of their rollout
of solar and wind. They're only just starting to roll out batteries. So they've been a bit
behind the curve on batteries. But once they do, they've now gone into that in a big way.
And once they get their batteries out on the grid, things will improve. No. And it's amazing how
many energy intensive industries are now moving to Spain because they can see how cheap electricity
is there. Indeed, you know, sometimes in the middle of day, it goes down to zero or even negative
and the batteries will fix that by spreading that power across the day. But, you know, the big
energy power consumers are now going to Spain and setting up there because they see a grid with
loads of generation capacity, loads of solar and wind, both large scale and household level.
And they see a grid that isn't bothered if global gas prices go up. And that's pretty amazing position
to be in. Yeah. No, I mean, that is, well, I think I was going to say that it's good to end on an
optimistic note, but actually we could have ended anywhere in the last 55 minutes because it was
all, I mean, it is so uplifting to talk to you, Sonia, because it's so exciting what's going on.
And you've just, I mean, I kind of probably know more than the average person about what's
happening in, you know, it's my passion and fascination with it. But I think your clarity
of understanding and your knowledge and breadth of knowledge is really wonderful to hear because
you've actually, you know, I would love to have gone to the conference in Shanghai.
Next year I'll come along. But that is insane because I was at the motor show in Shanghai
last year, which was an extraordinary experience in itself. But I don't think, I mean, it sounds
like there were as many people going to the solar conferences they were going to the motor
show. I mean, it's an insane number of people, which kind of shows you the scale of that industry
as well. It's sort of absolutely. Yeah. And the main thing we are doing all over the world now
is working with our national industry associations. And we want to make sure we have a really strong
national industry association, every capital around the world, just to be to be working with the
government and working with the electricity regulator to say, you know, what all we need is low or no
import duties on solar coming into the country for the UK. That's a tick. We want low or no VAT
on the systems when you buy them, zero percent VAT here in the UK until the end of until March,
2027, for at least we want to remove as much red tape as possible, make it as easy as possible
for people to put solar on their roof. And with balcony solar, we want people to be able to just
install it and plug it in themselves, which isn't even that big an ask. And we want to make it easy
for people to be able to borrow money to go solar where they need to write no one not everyone has
10, 20 grand lying around in their bank account. Of course they don't. It's a huge amount of money.
And so people like Sunsave and Solar City and and similar, you know, should be able to come along
and put the solar on your roof for you and sell you the cheap power. But the really exciting,
I think, as well as when you get cities involved in this. So, you know, what if London set a target
for how many millions of solar rooftops it wants? What if Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow,
you know, Newcastle all did the same? What if if if thousands of cities around the world
just put their heads together and figured out how to just do this almost street by street,
then really, you know, we could we can literally power the world many times over,
either by putting solar on every rooftop we can, or by just combining it with 1% of the
world's agricultural land, you know, and so the the the options are limitless.
And so we just have to make sure that we fix those last few little problems. And then Bob's
your uncle, as they say. That is great. Use a word, a name that our podcast host has. Yes,
I'm very happy to be Uncle Bob for this particular particular job. Sonya, it's been a real joy
talking to you. Thank you so much for your time. It's been really wonderful and good luck with
everything. And I'm going to be following what you do very carefully because I think it's extraordinary
and all power to you.
Well, I really hope you enjoyed that. It was an amazing conversation.
The thing is when we stop recording, because I knew I didn't want to take up too much of
her time, but but Sonya and I then talk for another 20 minutes after that. And yeah,
there's a lot going on, I think is the bottom line. Really hope you enjoyed it. Please do,
as I said, please tell your friends about this, please spread the word, please do subscribe
if you haven't already. And as always, if you have been, thank you for watching.
Original notes
Robert Llewellyn shines a light on the burgeoning solar industry with Sonia Dunlop the CEO of the Global Solar Council. Plug in for Pakistan's success story, to understand the unstoppable rise of balcony solar, and prepare to engage smug mode as the power of the sun trumps fossil fuels forever... Fresh from the triumph of Everything Electric WEST, Robert and his tireless team gets set for a glorious summer, ahead of their Autumn events in GREATER LONDON & SYDNEY respectively. Come join us at Twickenham Stadium or Sydney Showground: https://everythingelectric.show EE GREATER LONDON (Twickenham) - 11th & 12th Sept 2026 EE SYDNEY - Sydney Olympic Park - 18th - 20th Sept 2026 To partner, exhibit or sponsor at our award-winning expos email: [email protected] Check out our sister channel Everything Electric CARS: https://www.youtube.com/@fullychargedshow Support our StopBurningStuff campaign: https://www.patreon.com/STOPBurningStuff Become an Everything Electric Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fullychargedshow Become a YouTube member: use JOIN button above Buy the Fully Charged Guide to Electric Vehicles & Clean Energy : https://buff.ly/2GybGt0 Subscribe for episode alerts and the Everything Electric newsletter: https://fullycharged.show/zap-sign-up/ Visit: https://FullyCharged.Show Find us on X: https://x.com/Everyth1ngElec Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/officialeverythingelectric EE SYDNEY - Sydney Olympic Park - 18th - 20th Sept 2026 #fullychargedshow #everythingelectricshow #homeenergy #cleanenergy #battery #electriccars #electric-vehicles-uk
