@literatesavant no, I was just trying to freshen it all up a bit!

41. Achieving a low-carbon transition, for most countries, will not look like winning a war or marching while waving flags. It is the ability to say "no thank you, we do not want what you are selling" to the petrostates, and walking (or cycling, or taking a bus, or driving an EV) away.

(The End, for now).

40. Decarbonization offers financial savings as well as costs. Even our Economic Transition Scenario, a base case where change is driven by cost analysis and existing policy, has energy import dependence falling substantially for many countries by 2035. No paywall:

https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-energy/bloombergnefs-new-energy-outlook-2026-transition-to-newer-technologies-expanded-electrification-to-strengthen-nations-energy-security/

39. Even our Net Zero Scenario modelling, to my despair, relies a lot on carbon capture and storage from a residual fragment of gas generation. Net zero is just very hard, but working towards it is better than not working!

38. Many of these turbines will run at lower capacity factors than historical gas turbines, and the best sort of fossil fuel plant is one that runs only occasionally. It is possible to have higher fossil capacity but much lower fuel burn, and indeed this makes a lot of economic sense.

37. Nonetheless, it will be very difficult to reach net zero emissions, and getting rid of the last 10% of fossil fuel will be the hardest. Gas turbine orders hit a record 67GW worldwide in 1H 2026 (paywall).

https://www.bnef.com/insights/40519

36. Solar long ago stopped being only for rich countries, and now batteries are the same.

35. The Philippines is having an amazing boom – we estimate that it will build 5.6GW of new solar in 2026, compared with 1GW last year. Plus 2.7GWh of batteries in 2026. Maybe the first market where the solar boom comes with batteries from the start.

34. Demand for solar panels to sub-Saharan Africa is rising; it was the destination for 9.4 gigawatts (GW) of Chinese module exports in the first half of 2026, compared with 13.1GW in the whole of 2025. South Africa, Nigeria, Congo, Ghana and Kenya are the largest markets.

33. Pakistan: ~25% of generation comes from solar, mostly small user-owned systems. It has grown due to rising power prices, distrust of utilities, landlords who see the benefits and provide PV to tenants as patronage, and really good how-to Tiktoks in local languages.

This has stabilised and even reduced demand for gas and grid power, which puts new stresses on utilities and the government, which is responsible for capacity payments to China-owned coal plants. I do not know what happens next.

32. A few interesting bellwether markets! Bulgaria, with 2025 peak power demand of 7.4GW, already has 4GW of batteries and a further 2-4GW in the pipeline, for 16GWh total. It is well connected with neighbouring grids and may become a short-term balancing hub.

31. The US whack-a-mole approach to tariffs on new solar supply countries has resulted in cell and module factories built in a hurry in Africa, almost on a temporary basis because everyone knows the tariffs will hit them next.

This is not good for developing a skilled workforce or rigorous quality control.

30. The rest of us, if we want to be less dependent on China for solar modules, should buy from southeast Asia, India or Turkey, which will be happy to sell them at much less cost than setting up a domestic industry.

29. As a consequence of trade barriers, US solar module buyers are now paying more than 38 US cents per Watt, for generally worse products than free trade markets are getting for 12 US cents per Watt.

28. The US and India are locked into having high-price local solar module markets, due to trade wars.

27. For 7 years I have been refusing to get excited about perovskites. Still not. Crystalline silicon is honestly pretty great, and perovskites won’t solve the basic problems for solar, which are unrelated to efficiency or price.

26. Grazing sheep under solar panels should not qualify for agrivoltaics support. Solar subsidising sheep farming is not particularly an environmental plus. (Some crops do work well with PV, for example shade-tolerant berries, and in some climates, growth isn't limited by light availability).

25. Agrivoltaics: sure, you can put solar on anything. It may even help, eg in this blistering summer a bit of shade would have helped many European crops. But it’s looking for preferential support, because there are reasons farmers currently prefer open, machine-accessible fields.

24. “But you can own your own power plant!”.

No normal person wants to own their own power plant. Apart from us weirdoes, most people want to buy affordable, reliable power from the grid and have someone else make the investment and worry about the details.

23. Balcony solar: sure, you can put solar on anything. It works at any scale. But the amounts are tiny - this is not really an alternative to building large amounts of rooftop or ground mount solar.