The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's fifth assessment report emphasizes the importance of bioenergy and carbon capture and storage for achieving climate goals, but it does not identify solar energy as a strategically important technology option. That is surprising given the strong growth, large resource, and low environmental footprint of photovoltaics (PV). Here we explore how models have consistently underestimated PV deployment and identify the reasons for underlying bias in models. Our analysis reveals that rapid technological learning and technology-specific policy support were crucial to PV deployment in the past, but that future success will depend on adequate financing instruments and the management of system integration. We propose that with coordinated advances in multiple components of the energy system, PV could supply 30–50% of electricity in competitive markets.

政府间气候变化专门委员会的第五次评估报告强调了生物能源以及碳捕集与封存对于实现气候目标的重要性，但并未将太阳能确定为具有战略意义的技术选择。鉴于光伏（PV）的强劲增长，大量资源和低环境足迹，这令人惊讶。在这里，我们探讨了模型如何始终低估了PV部署，并确定了模型中潜在偏见的原因。我们的分析表明，快速的技术学习和特定于技术的政策支持对于过去PV的部署至关重要，但是未来的成功将取决于适当的融资工具和系统集成的管理。我们建议，随着能源系统多个组成部分的协调发展，