Mike McQuade

Climate change is a reality. we can no longer bury our heads in the sand about how we have changed our environment for the worse through our use of, and reliance on, non-renewable energy resources.



But the good news is that 2018 will finally mark a shift in our use of global energy. Next year will see onshore wind and solar energy become the lowest-cost form of energy generation across the world.



This lower cost means that those with an interest in sustaining our planet are increasingly aligned with those who are driven by profit. As Michael Drexler, agenda adviser to the World Economic Forum, stated in a debate in April 2017: "Solar and wind have just become very competitive and costs continue to fall. It is not only a commercially viable option, but an outright compelling investment opportunity with long-term, stable, inflation-protected returns."



The costs of solar and wind are falling each year - and today they are lower than coal. According to engineering consultancy Arup, onshore wind is on track to be lower cost even than natural gas in the UK by 2018, especially if it is to be included in the existing Contract for Difference (Cfd) mechanism. In the US, a report by Lazard, the asset-management firm, has shown that onshore wind and utility-scale solar have significantly lower costs today than any other form of energy if the energy playing field is levelled by taking away subsidies.



From the US to China and Nigeria to Mexico, investors and governments are rapidly catching up to the new rules of energy. In 2018 we will see smarter regulatory environments, new projects coming online, even greater efficiencies in technologies and energy-storage costs and a further dawning realisation of companies exposed to long-term fossil fuels that their positions are increasingly untenable.



And the benefits will trickle down. Citizens across Africa who are spending up to 16 per cent of their household income on fuels such as kerosene or disposable batteries now have multiple options to harness solar energy for their daily needs.



"The cheapest electricity in most of Africa now comes from a solar panel on your roof," says Xavier Helgesen, CEO of Off Grid Electric. "The combination of growing demand for reliable electricity and plummeting costs for solar and batteries has started to spark a distributed-energy revolution in Africa."



In 2018, the world will experience a global energy sea change based on solar and onshore wind being the cheapest forms of energy. No more excuses and no more platitudes from our governments: now the markets and citizens will be the drivers of the energy revolution.