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Disruptive Innovations for Net Zero

Our latest report leverages the efforts of multiple global teams. We estimate the potential impact of 14 innovations across solar/wind supply chains and what we believe the market may not fully appreciate.

We also review renewable energy innovations that could pave the road beyond grid-parity. We've witnessed dramatic cost reductions in renewables driven by technology improvements in the past decade. These improvements helped most of the world achieve grid-parity. For the next decade, a new round of innovations already in progress will bring global renewables demand to a new level by making renewables more economical, efficient, and available. And we investigate how these improvements in solar/wind may cause costs to fall substantially and global solar/wind annual installation to rise accordingly.

In contrast to some views, we believe disruptive innovations won't be a threat to existing renewables leaders because: (1) The next innovation cycle should get prolonged; (2) Squeezed margins reduce the incentive and capability of existing capacities' replacement; (3) Capital and R&D strengths of existing leaders allow them to diversify their tech portfolios. Existing leaders will be further strengthened by these innovations. We estimate that the global capacity shares of the top five solar polysilicon/wafer/cell/module makers will increase further.

We also estimate that the category leaders' demand upside and resilience are not fully valued. We expect the critical component producers, equipment makers, materials providers, and power project developers in the renewable supply chains could benefit most from the next round of tech innovations.

@Alex Liu