What I found when I went prospecting for solar

Will Tope

A shimmer is perhaps the best way to describe it.

An ocean of solar panels, stretching miles into the horizon and almost rippling under the bright Mongolian sun. I’d seen hints of it on the long drive in, but it was only from a viewpoint above the Great Solar Wall that the numbers came into focus: 5.4GW of installed capacity – the equivalent to ten coal-fired plants – concentrated in a single zone of the Kubuqi Desert.

I wasn’t there to coin ‘shimmer’ as the collective noun for a mass of solar panels, though. I was there to prospect for solar wealth.

Given where it comes from, solar power is often described as the great equaliser. Energy from the sun is free to access, abundant, and now cheaper than ever to draw down and convert to other useful forms.

But anyone living in the UK would no doubt happily tell you that the sun doesn’t shine equally everywhere – yet this shouldn’t be a limitation when we consider the incredible nuclear source behind solar energy.

Fusion is already here – the sun delivers it every day. But not all sunlight is equal and the winners will be those who know exactly where to look.

Coming up sunny

Conditions for solar generation vary greatly, dependent on a number of factors.

The key measure is irradiance levels, or the number of photons hitting the ground in any given place, and at what level of intensity. Cloud and dust cover, temperature efficiency loss, daylight duration and seasonal day-squeeze all have an impact on this measure too. By quantifying these factors, it’s possible to map the best solar sites in the world.

To get geeky, you can roughly smash these factors together as follows:

What we find is that many of these places are correlated with some of the harshest environments on earth.

But – some of these places are incredibly sparsely populated, the Sahara Desert to name an obvious one. Some of these places are so remote that the cost of transporting clean energy such distances from solar fields simply doesn’t add up.

But plenty aren’t. India is the new population centre of the world, Mongolia borders China, and the population of the Middle East is on its way to doubling in the coming decades.

Prospecting for solar means seeking these hyper-productive sweet spots out. And unlike the gold hunters or oil seekers of centuries past, figuring out where to get good sun involves a lot less pot luck.

We’re going where we can have the biggest impact

Prospecting for solar may feel intuitive — yet when you look at where solar farms have been deployed to date, it’s clear that we’re missing the biggest opportunity.

Part of this is cultural. Solar, in the UK at least, still feels like a very B2C proposition — and it’s great to see the proliferation of panels on people’s roofs. But this isn’t the case in developing economies, where many solar hotspots are located. The opportunity to establish clean energy grids in these places at this critical early stage is huge.

Ultimately, at LiNa, we want our tech to have the biggest impact possible. This has made our partnerships with Tata Power and with ACWA Power all the more significant. Now, we want to build on these early successes in India. Hence, the shimmering fields of Mongolia — and my incredibly well-stamped passport.

As ever, it comes back to the duck curve. Despite the miles of panels generating power throughout the day, a lack of proper storage in locations like the one I visited in Mongolia means vastly untapped potential.

Such harsh environments present a huge challenge to traditional battery storage — but as born innovators, we see potential where others find problems. And our tech is standing up to the test.

To some, Mongolia’s endless, brutal expanses may appear delicate. To me? They glitter with green opportunities.