Toward carbon neutrality: Projecting a desert-based photovoltaic power network circumnavigating the globe.

ABSTRACT: Carbon, the human's most reliable fuel type in the past, must be neutralized in this century toward the Paris Agreement temperature goals. Solar power is widely believed a key fossil fuel substitute but suffers from the needs of large space occupation and huge energy storage for peak shaving. Here, we propose a solar network circumnavigating the globe to connecting large-scale desert photovoltaics among continents. By evaluating the generation potential of desert photovoltaic plants on each continent (taking dust accumulation into account) and the hourly maximum transmission potential that each inhabited continent can receive (taking transmission loss into account), we find that the current total annual human demand for electricity will be more than met by this solar network. The local imb

SUBMITTER: Zhou Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10096912 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature