Reaching net zero emissions demands faster innovation, but we’ve already come a long way

A new energy economy is emerging fast, building on a long history of technological progress. And if history is any guide, clean energy innovation can be a slow journey. For example, while the photovoltaic effect was discovered in the late 1830s and the first solar PV cell prototyped in the 1880s, technology progress only accelerated much later, in the 1950s. Solar power reached 1% of global electricity generation in 2015 only. Similarly, the first wind turbine was built in the 1880s, but wind power only reached 1% of national power generation in Denmark a century later, and 1% of global power generation later still, in 2008. The battery effect was demonstrated in 1800, but today’s well-known lithium-ion batteries were prototyped for the first time in the 1980s and reached the mass market by 2010.