Here comes the Sun — rethinking how we power the world
When it comes to climate change, energy lies at the heart of the challenge.
While fossil fuels account for more than 75% of global greenhouse emissions, renewable energy sources emit no pollutants during operation and are available in abundance.
The need to harness these sources gets ever more urgent each year. Science backed by the United Nations suggests that emissions need to be reduced by almost half by 2030 and to net zero by 2050 if we are to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
But new challenges emerge all the time. Data centres, which keep the digital world whirring and increasingly power AI systems, are becoming more energy-intensive. The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that data centre electricity consumption will grow by around 15% per year, and will make up just under 3% of global electricity consumption by 2030.
To explore what the future of energy may look like, we spoke to a company that is already innovating. GRYD is offering the UK’s first solar subscription model, where homeowners gain access to solar power through a fixed monthly fee, including installation and maintenance. We spoke to CEO and Co-Founder Mohamed Gaafar about what his company is doing and if he sees a bright future for solar and renewables.
Putting solar panels on your roof seems like an easy win. It allows you to be part of the push to sustainability while also avoiding the energy price hikes we have seen in recent years. However, many are put off by the up-front costs and concerns that they won’t stay in the property long enough to recoup costs (estimated to be around 8 to 12 years).
“It just doesn’t make economic sense for most people,” admits Gaafar.
And even on new builds, where it seems like a no-brainer to install solar panels, the picture is depressing.
“I live in an area where there are a decent number of new builds, and it is soul-destroying when I go past and see three or maybe four solar panels being installed. It is really frustrating because we know three or four panels are not enough to meet homeowners’ energy demand,” he told TFD.
GRYD is working to turn the traditional model of solar on its head.
“We fund, manage and operate smart solar and battery systems for new homes at zero cost to the developers and the homeowners. What we are saying is, we’ll own it, we’ll provide those benefits and share them across multiple homeowners and tenants,” he said.
It seems like a win-win, and Gaafar firmly believes that generating and storing solar “behind the meter” is the direction of travel for the energy industry. Improvements in battery tech will mean that being entirely off-grid will become viable, even during a depressingly grey English winter.
While solar subscription is a relatively new idea in the UK, in the US it has already been accumulating fans and, in August last year, US firm Sunrun became the first solar subscription business to reach one million customers.
Virtual networks
“The move toward decentralised energy is quite literally rewiring the way that we use energy and how it works,” said Gaafar.
We may not have the luxury of waiting for these upgrades if we want to hit our net-zero targets on time. “We’ve waited decades for utility-scale solar, and if we’re waiting decades more for the grid to be upgraded, well, there is no benefit.”
That’s part of why distributed solar is starting to look like a more resilient option.
Gaafar envisions a future where we increasingly rely on energy created at our homes, rather than in big power plants miles away. Smart tech can then balance energy to create a flexible and democratised energy network, essentially bypassing some of the grid’s limitations.
“Currently, we have devices that connect to a home, and then those homes connect to a network. But imagine if those networks no longer have to be physically based. The idea of a virtual power plant where homes can connect with each other and trade energy between them is starting to take shape. It will open up a lot of possibilities for the future of energy.”
Though the road to this future isn’t without its own challenges, such as how to store unused power.
“When we’ve got a surplus of solar and the grid risks getting saturated, we need storage.”
This is something Australia is rushing to figure out right now – it has a profusion of sun and now generates over 10% of its electricity via rooftop solar alone. It is an issue that needs to be addressed urgently.
Though the price of solar and battery tech will continue to come down, he predicts the capacity of hardware will increase. This means that consumers can “fit larger, more robust systems and more self-sufficient ones”, shifting more of their energy demand off the grid and increasingly mitigating their exposure to wholesale price swings.
He thinks we will see some big innovations in battery tech, something he describes as “a key tool in the clean energy transition”.
“In the near future, no home will be without battery storage. We’re already seeing them become a critical technology to insulate homes from regular, sustained power outages in places like Texas. Continued innovations in the technology will deliver sleeker, more compact and denser battery storage architectures that can help people to meet their own energy needs and keep their homes running cheaper, for longer,” added Gaafar.
People also continue to innovate on the ‘form’ factor for rooftop solar, be it solar roof tiles or hybrid systems that allow panels to slip in and out behind the roof structure, which could improve efficiency. It will be interesting if we reach a point where solar roof tiles are cheaper than regular roof tiles, which would greatly increase deployment.
Global supply chain
While pretty much every country has a clean energy push, none can compete with what is happening in China. Its pivot to green, coupled with unparalleled manufacturing capacity, has put it at the heart of the global clean energy supply chain. It now produces an estimated 80% of the world’s solar panels and a large number of wind turbines. It also dominates global lithium-ion battery production, which is essential for EVs.
All of which presents some geo-political problems.
“It’s a massive challenge. It’s really hard to come to terms with the scale at which China is not only manufacturing these things but also deploying and installing them.” Gaafar noted that, in 2024, China added more solar than the US did in its entire history. “If something were to happen involving China, the impact on the global supply chain for solar and batteries would be felt worldwide.”
China’s dominance means it is more important than ever that Western countries devise clear and impactful clean energy strategies for the next 10 years.
“Particularly in the current political climate, many are seeing the crucial need to reduce their reliance on China and improve the resilience of their supply chains. It will require significant investment to move manufacturing onshore, given the amount of control China currently yields, but the need for it is paramount if these countries want to establish their renewables resilience.”
Europe rising?
One way the UK has responded is with the Future Home Standard (FHS), which is due to come into force this year. It aims to ensure that new homes built in England will produce 75-80% fewer carbon emissions than those built under current building regulations. This is expected to mandate on-site renewables such as solar, heat pumps or zero-carbon heating and hot water. Other suggestions include: waste water heat recovery systems, reduced heat waste, and better insulation.
Gaafar described the FHS as an important piece of legislation to ensure homes built now are fit for the future and one that could put the UK “back on the map as a leader within the climate space.”
Leadership is much needed as the US pedals back on the Inflation Reduction Act, widely regarded as a flagship climate change initiative, providing tax incentives for a range of clean energy projects.
“It was an incredibly progressive piece of legislation for incentivising and really moving the needle on the clean energy transition,” explained Gaafar.
Trump’s decisions to freeze funding for clean energy projects previously supported by the Inflation Reduction Act and abandon the Paris Climate Agreement are, he says, “disappointing and massively challenging.”
“The optimistic view is that someone else emerges as the new leader in this space to show what the benefits are from taking charge of this.”
One benefit that Europe may see in the next four years of Trump’s government is more investment in its own clean energy projects.
“The Inflation Reduction Act created such a great incentive that it was hard for European start-ups to compete. And now investors we’ve spoken to say there could be more of a shift back towards Europe.”
If the energy demand of data centres continues to increase as expected, they are likely to only use renewables, such as solar or wind, as supplementary energy sources.
AI demands
One of the biggest challenges facing countries over the next decade is how they balance the need for advancements in AI technologies with energy needs. Some predict its energy demand will nearly double by 2030, leading to vocal concerns that the grid will not cope.
Like Texas, which is facing soaring electricity costs due to crypto mining facilities and AI-driven data centres.
All eyes are on the big tech firms that run the data centres and the AI systems that are hungrily eating up energy. Some, including Amazon, advocate for the need for nuclear power plants. Google has pledged to build wind and solar farms next to all its future data centres, while Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has expressed doubts that renewables will be enough.
Perhaps surprisingly, Gaafar agrees with Altman.
“Having solar panels on top of a data centre doesn’t do enough, which is why you have companies such as OpenAI investing in nuclear fusion, because the intensity and the scale of energy required is so significant that it’s going to need a whole suite of technologies,” he said.
“If the energy demand of data centres continues to increase as expected, they are likely to only use renewables, such as solar or wind, as supplementary energy sources. However, we are beginning to see data centres explore interesting applications of grid-scale batteries coupled with onsite renewables generation. Whilst they may not be a silver bullet given the immense amount of energy these centres need, they are readily applicable as opposed to developing solutions like nuclear fusion.”
Flying close to the Sun
Could it be that the solution lies in Space?
Space Solar is one of many companies trying to harness limitless clean power from the Sun via huge solar arrays. In April last year, the firm claimed a breakthrough with a 360° power transmission system that could wirelessly beam energy back to Earth regardless of orientation.
It is an area Gaafar is both excited and sceptical about.
“There’s a serious amount of investment going into it, and it is interesting. It’s a cool idea and could have a really big impact, but it is likely to be 15 years or more into the future and may never exist at all. We need a mix of people working on moonshots and people working on real tech that already exists,” he said.
Describing himself as an “idealistic pragmatist”, he thinks that we will need a huge variety of clean tech options in the next decade.
Personally, though, he is walking on the sunny side of the street.
“Off-grid solar is one of the cheapest forms of energy. I’m very much on the side of finding ways to harness it in smart and clever ways. That ultimately will be the best way for us to meet our energy needs.”