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Large‐scale production of solar PV systems is at infant stage due to low efficiency and high cost. Government is supporting these installations to promote renewable energy sources. Technically solar PV systems are viable but not economical. So, this area needs more R&D and innovative methods to increase the production at large scale.

One of the major challenges in deployment of offshore wind energy at a large scale is its high cost of installations and maintenance. With the latest technology developments in the field of manufacturing, installations and operations, its cost has significantly decreased. By 2050, cost of offshore wind energy is expected to decrease by a large factor, and it can directly compete with electricity generation using fossil fuels (IRENA 2019d). So, this challenge could be tackled by the wind industry based on the advanced technologies developed by scientific research community.

Other than solar and wind sector, all alternative sources of energy technologies are not economically viable compared with conventional sources of energy. Thus, large‐scale production in these sectors needs more advances in technology from cost and production viewpoint.

Figure 2.6 Worldwide, LCOE from the alternative energy sources for the period 2010–2017.

Source: https://www.irena.org/Statistics © IRENA.

Note2: Dashed line represents the global weighted average LCOE and band shows the fossil‐fuel‐fired electricity generation cost range.