Laser Focus World is an industry bedrock—first published in 1965 and still going strong. We publish original articles about cutting-edge advances in lasers, optics, photonics, sensors, and quantum technologies, as well as test and measurement, and the shift currently underway to usher in the photonic integrated circuits, optical interconnects, and copackaged electronics and photonics to deliver the speed and efficiency essential for data centers of the future.

Our 80,000 qualified print subscribers—and 130,000 12-month engaged online audience—trust us to dive in and provide original journalism you won’t find elsewhere covering key emerging areas such as laser-driven inertial confinement fusion, lasers in space, integrated photonics, chipscale lasers, LiDAR, metasurfaces, high-energy laser weaponry, photonic crystals, and quantum computing/sensors/communications. We cover the innovations driving these markets.

Laser Focus World is part of Endeavor Business Media, a division of EndeavorB2B.

Laser Focus World Membership

Never miss any articles, videos, podcasts, or webinars by signing up for membership access to Laser Focus World online. You can manage your preferences all in one place—and provide our editorial team with your valued feedback.

Magazine Subscription

Can you subscribe to receive our print issue for free? Yes, you sure can!

Newsletter Subscription

Laser Focus World newsletter subscription is free to qualified professionals:

The Daily Beam

Showcases the newest content from Laser Focus World, including photonics- and optics-based applications, components, research, and trends. (Daily)

Product Watch

The latest in products within the photonics industry. (9x per year)

Bio & Life Sciences Product Watch

The latest in products within the biophotonics industry. (4x per year)

Laser Processing Product Watch

The latest in products within the laser processing industry. (3x per year)

Get Published!

If you’d like to write an article for us, reach out with a short pitch to Sally Cole Johnson: [email protected]. We love to hear from you.

Photonics Hot List

Laser Focus World produces a video newscast that gives a peek into what’s happening in the world of photonics.

Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast

Following the Photons: A Photonics Podcast dives deep into the fascinating world of photonics. Our weekly episodes feature interviews and discussions with industry and research experts, providing valuable perspectives on the issues, technologies, and trends shaping the photonics community.

Editorial Advisory Board

  • Professor Andrea M. Armani, University of Southern California
  • Ruti Ben-Shlomi, Ph.D., LightSolver
  • James Butler, Ph.D., Hamamatsu
  • Natalie Fardian-Melamed, Ph.D., Columbia University
  • Justin Sigley, Ph.D., AmeriCOM
  • Professor Birgit Stiller, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, and Leibniz University of Hannover
  • Professor Stephen Sweeney, University of Glasgow
  • Mohan Wang, Ph.D., University of Oxford
  • Professor Xuchen Wang, Harbin Engineering University
  • Professor Stefan Witte, Delft University of Technology

Marin Katusa: The switch to solar is happening much faster than you realize

Marin Katusa: The switch to solar is happening much faster than you realize

Reprinted from the Katusa’s Investment Insights newsletter

The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.
– Harvard physicist Al Bartlett

You’ll never guess why solar power was invented by AT&T back in the mid-‘50s. It was with wildly modest intentions: Powering payphones in remote areas.

The first demonstration of a scrappy, cobbled-together “solar panel” generated just enough power to slowly spin a tiny toy Ferris wheel. No one (not even AT&T) understood the exponential growth potential of this new technology.

But last year, solar panels produced three times the amount of energy used by the entire U.S. back when that Ferris wheel was spinning. Because solar has a single secret superpower no other major source of energy has.

Energy sources like coal or natural gas have a fixed cost of extraction. So even as the amount drilled for or mined rises by orders of magnitude, their prices stay roughly the same — over centuries.

But solar cells are manufactured, not extracted. That means solar becomes much cheaper with every successive cell manufactured — and 70 billion solar cells were manufactured last year.

So from 1985-2025, while coal was going nowhere, the price of solar fell off a cliff. The graph below shows the last 45 years of cumulative GW of production vs price, on a log scale.

Marin Katusa: The switch to solar is happening much faster than you realize

Nothing but solar is capable of this kind of ongoing price decrease. Which is why, within a decade, the single biggest source of electrical power on planet Earth will be solar. And that switch is happening much, much faster than even the “experts” are predicting.

Everyone is wrong about solar

For the last quarter-century, some of the most reputable organizations in the world have wildly underestimated solar power growth predictions. For example, the International Energy Agency (IEA) publishes predictions about solar’s growth in its annual World Energy Outlook report. In its 2009 report, the IEA predicted that by 2029, installed solar capacity would increase 10x, to 244 GW.

It hit that milestone in just six years and has nearly grown 10 times — again — from there. For much of the 2010s, solar deployment beat the IEA’s five-year forecasts by 200%+. They constantly revise their forecast upward to try to keep pace with reality:

  • In 2021, they said 2023 would bring 218GW of installation.
  • In 2022, they said 257GW. In 2023, they said 406GW.

BNEF, a Bloomberg subsidiary, tried the same. But the reality was that 447GW were deployed—more than twice their original predictions. And it made exactly the same mistake in 2024.

The trouble with solar predictions is that no one has learned the lesson from the last 70 years of solar. The experts are still assuming linear growth. But solar is growing exponentially.

From that first Ferris wheel, through the ‘80s and ‘90s and early ’00s, it looked like solar was barely moving. Now all at once — this year — solar is becoming the global standard for electricity generation.

Solar growth at the speed of light

To understand where solar is actually headed, take past reality and work forward from there. Here’s how rapidly solar deployment has grown—for the past two decades:

  • In 2004, it took one year to install 1 GW of solar power.
  • In 2010, it took one month.
  • In 2016, it took one week.
  • In 2024, it took about 12 hours. That’s the equivalent of 3.4 football fields of solar installed every minute.

Here’s what that looks like over the past 15 years. Note that the y-axis in the chart below is exponential—and solar is breaking out above that trendline.

Marin Katusa: The switch to solar is happening much faster than you realize

At the current growth rate, solar capacity is doubling about every three years — or growing 10x every decade. According to ISES, solar power will surpass nuclear generation in 2026, wind in 2027 dams in 2028, gas in 2030 and coal in 2032.

And in just 25 years, solar capacity will exceed 75TW — or 6x the world’s current electricity generating capacity. That will make solar humankind’s largest source of primary energy — not just electricity. Which means we’re closer to AT&T’s Ferris wheel in terms of total solar deployment than we are to what’s coming.

Almost all the demand for solar panels still lies in the future.
– The Economist

Exponential growth is difficult to see at first—until suddenly, it looks like it was inevitable. It’s not often the future is this easy to predict. Fortunately, it’s also not difficult to profit from an exponentially growing technology. You just have to recognize the opportunity.

We’ve already done the legwork for you and identified a company that is capitalizing on the massive solar growth in the United States. And we’re going to show you how they’re on the verge of hitting their “Netflix Moment.”

More from Marin Katusa: Lithium’s math problem

Stock Quote API & Stock News API supplied by www.cloudquote.io
Quotes delayed at least 20 minutes.
By accessing this page, you agree to the following
Privacy Policy and Terms Of Service.