Solar History Timeline: The Future

Here's a look at some things we can expect in the future from solar technologies.

All our buildings will feature energy-efficient design, construction, and materials as well as renewable energy technologies. In effect, each building will both conserve energy and produce its own supply, to be one of a new generation of cost-effective "zero-energy buildings" that have no net annual need for nonrenewable energy.

In photovoltaic research and development, there will be more breakthroughs in new materials, cell designs, and novel approaches to product development. In a solar future, your mode of transportation—and even the clothes you wear—could produce clean, safe electric power.

With today's technology roadmaps to lead the way, concentrating solar power will be fully competitive with conventional power-generating technologies within a decade. Concentrating solar power, or solar thermal electricity, could harness enough of the sun's energy to provide large-scale, domestically secure, and environmentally friendly electricity, especially in the southwestern United States.

The enormous solar power potential of the Southwest—comparable in scale to the huge hydropower resource of the Northwest—will be realized. A desert area 10 miles by 15 miles could provide 20,000 megawatts of power, and the electricity needs of the entire United States could theoretically be met by a photovoltaic array within an area 100 miles on a side.

Within 10 years, photovoltaic power will be competitive in price with traditional sources of electricity.

Solar electricity will be used in an electrolysis process that separates the hydrogen and oxygen in water so the hydrogen can be used in fuel cells for transportation and in buildings.