The logical outcome of this is that we should delay installing any solar for 5 years:

Solar power cells have raced past the key milestone of 30% energy efficiency, after innovations by multiple research groups around the world. The feat makes this a “revolutionary” year, according to one expert, and could accelerate the rollout of solar power.

…

The breakthrough is adding a layer of perovskite, another semiconductor, on top of the silicon layer. This captures blue light from the visible spectrum, while the silicon captures red light, boosting the total light captured overall. With more energy absorbed per cell, the cost of solar electricity is even cheaper, and deployment can proceed faster to help keep global heating under control.

The perovskite-silicon “tandem” cells have been under research for about a decade, but recent technical improvements have now pushed them past the 30% milestone. Experts said that if the scaling-up of production of the tandem cells proceeds smoothly, they could be commercially available within five years, about the same time silicon-only cells reach their maximum efficiency.

The technical stuff there is correct too. But if solar is about to get very much better - which it is - then the correct response is to stop installing this soon to be surpassed solar technology - installations do last 20 to 25 years after all - and instead wait and install the newer and better starting in 5 years’ time.

Actually, this has been true of solar for the past 25 years. Costs have been going down 20% a year. As Bjorn Lomborg predicted they would those couple of decades back. As Lomborg also pointed out assume that holds true and by the mid-2020s then solar would become the installation of choice. Why would anyone bother to install anything other than the cheapest alternative, after all?

The corollary of this is that everything we’ve spent upon subsidy up to now has been a complete and entire waste of money. Technologies do mature into being usable and cost effective - it’s simply spraying cash up against the wall to try and install them before that has happened.

Please do note our position here. We’re not against doing things to beat climate change, not in the slightest. We just keep insisting that we should be doing these things efficiently. For, as the Stern Review itself points out, humans do more of cheaper things, less of more expensive. Therefore attacking climate change inefficiently means we’ll do less attacking climate change. That might not be a good idea.