Outspoken tech billionaire Elon Musk has pointed to a groundbreaking milestone in Australian solar power generation as he boldly predicted the future of the world’s energy mix.
Musk highlighted the rapid growth of rooftop solar in Western Australia, which accounted for an impressive 80.5 per cent of the state’s electricity generation on Monday.
At 1.30pm, solar output, mostly from rooftop installations, generated a total of 2.12 gigawatts in the region, far surpassing the output of traditional energy sources, according to data from the Australian Energy Market Operator.
In contrast, natural gas and coal’s contributions to the grid dropped significantly, with shares of just 8.6 per cent and 8.3 per cent, respectively.
‘Solar power will be the vast majority of power generation in the future,’ Musk wrote after sharing news about the Western Australia milestone.
As solar power generation soars in WA, the market operator and state government have signed contracts with battery developers to capture excess rooftop solar power during the day and release it back into the grid during evening peak demand.
Musk’s company, Tesla, has been at the forefront of accelerating solar power and battery adoption and has been a strong advocate for renewable energy solutions.
Last year, Musk suggested that if solar energy were harnessed effectively, it could power a civilization 100 times larger than the current global population.
Influential tech billionaire Elon Musk was impressed by Western Australia’s solar power energy figures
Musk shared a post on X showing tradies installing solar panels on a roof in Western Australia, along with statistics showing solar panels produced 80.5 per cent of the state’s generation of electricity
He said that because wind and solar power are not always consistent, it’s becoming more important to use stationary battery packs at renewable energy sites to store energy for when it’s needed.
Musk made the comments just hours after he was officially tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to to ‘dismantle’ the $6.5 trillion bloated US bureaucracy by spearheading the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.
Trump said the duo ‘will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies’.
However, it remains unclear how much influence Musk’s views on clean energy will have under the new Trump regime, with the President elect promising to increase fossil fuel production and withdraw the US from the Paris climate deal.
‘I think we should just generally lean in the direction of sustainability,’ Musk told Trump during a two-hour, livestreamed chat the two men held on the social platform X in August. ‘And I actually think solar is going to be a majority of Earth’s energy generation in the future.’
However Musk downplayed the urgency of the undertaking.
‘I think we want to just move over and if I don’t know, 50 to 100 years from now we’re mostly sustainable, I think that’ll probably be OK,’ Musk said. ‘It’s not like the house is on fire immediately.’
Musk has also been a proponent of nuclear power, which does not produce greenhouse gas.
‘Nuclear electricity generation is underrated,’ Musk said during the chat. ‘People have this fear of nuclear electricity generation, but it’s actually one of the safest forms of generation.’
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