Two dozen ships anchored outside Gladstone harbour in 2008, waiting to load coal.
The International Energy Agency have light to a fascinating meme in its Energy Technology Perspectives 2024 publication, which highlighted how “one ship load of solar PV is worth more to the grid than 100 ships of coal”.
The basis of the IEA estimate was 2023 data, and since then, technological improvements have increased the effectiveness of clean energy shiploads by up to 15 per cent across different technologies.
However, the efficiency of a ship full of coal or gas remains static.
A single shipment of solar technology provides a vastly greater, cleaner, and more sustained energy return compared to the massive volume of fossil fuel consumed for power.
We calculate that a single ship load of solar PV – which can ultimately deliver 170 terawatt hours of PV once installed, is now worth 120 coal carries, or 57 LNG tankers.
We’ve updated the meme to also include the impact of heat pumps and electric vehicles.
The shift in energy trade, as clean technology imports now make up a significant portion of energy trade value, surpasses fossil fuels in overall terms, and improves annually in efficiency terms.
This is more than just changing energy sources: the change impacts global shipping of about one third of the world merchant ship fleet that carry fossil fuels – around 12,500 tankers for oil and gas, and around 10,400 bulk carriers shipping coal.
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