Coal pollution is limiting solar generation by 5.8% globally - what about SAI?
Tom Harris
Coal burning is lowering the efficiency of solar power through air pollution blocking sunlight. This is not trivial either. In 2023 it caused a 5.8% reduction, equivalent to 111 TWh—the amount generated by 18 medium-sized coal-fired power plants.
A new study combined satellite imagery and machine learning to identify and map more than 140,000 solar installations worldwide. They then integrated these data with atmospheric observations and a validated solar energy model to estimate how much electricity each site generates and how much is lost due to air pollution.
Even with huge growth in solar capacity, pollution is effectively wiping out almost a third of the gains from new capacity. China is the worst effected with overall losses of 7.7%, while the US was 3.1%. China shows the fastest improvement though with a 1.4%/year drop in losses since 2017.
Things should improve as coal is phased out, but it leads to interesting questions. Could solar producers claim damages for losses sustained by polluting energy alternatives? This is another hidden cost of continued coal burning.
What impact would solar radiation management, such as stratospheric aerosol injection, have on solar generation capacity and should this be added to the cost estimates of deployment?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-026-01836-5
Food for thought.
Tom