On this blog at about this time of year I usually choose my ‘technology of the year’, and a person of the year. Today I’ll cover my technology of the year and in a few days I’ll write a blog about my person of the year.

My technology of the year is the solar photovoltaic panel. Of course, these panels have been around for decades. This year the very long term falling price has passed a critical threshold, and now solar is the cheapest form of electricity in most parts of the world. Costs are predicted to keep falling for years to come. The implications for every part of the global economy are profound. Oil, coal, gas and nuclear industries will become increasingly uncompetitive, their assets will become stranded, and bankruptcies are inevitable.

Photovoltaics will have many new uses. I’ve blogged before about numerous ground breaking solar technologies, from the first solar powered ship and plane to circumnavigate the Earth to the first car with integrated solar cells. Today I want to highlight three uses of solar that I think will be significant.

The first is the new Aptera solar powered car launched a few weeks ago in San Diego, California. It is very light weight, super aerodynamic, covered in photovoltaics, and, it is claimed, can travel one thousand miles without the need to stop and re-charge. It is very much more energy efficient than just about any car I can think of, with the possible exception of the Riversimple Rasa. If both cars and humans are to have any future, this is the way they all must go.

Solar powered desalination is as yet a tiny industry, but I think it will grow massively in the near future. An organization called GivePower has recently installed a few systems, including a couple in Kenya at Kiunga and Likoni, each capable of providing water for up to 35,000 people all day every day, using solar panels, batteries and a reverse osmosis desalination unit. There is a vast global need for this kind of technology to provide the approximately one billion people who do not currently have access to clean water with it.

How we integrate solar power into our agricultural landscape is going to be an important issue. The goal is to grow more and better food, and to produce clean energy, off the same land. This is our best hope for creating space for rewilding, tackling climate change and feeding humanity. BayWa and Groen Leven are developing clear photovoltaic panels under which crops can be grown. They are working with Wageningen Research centre and five Dutch fruit farms to test different levels of translucency on various types of fruit. Early results are looking promising. This system may well replace polytunnels as the maintenance costs look lower, the agricultural productivity higher and the ecological impact less damaging. These photovoltaic panels may replace ordinary glass in greenhouses, just as global greenhouse use expands rapidly.