– Given that solar energy is less hazardous and renewable, why aren’t more industries and nations fully embracing it?
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For one, they are absolutely moving to embrace solar about as fast as you can:
“The amount of renewable energy capacity added to energy systems around the world grew by 50% in 2023, reaching almost 510 gigawatts (GW), with solar PV accounting for three-quarters of additions worldwide, according to [Renewables 2023](https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023), the latest edition of the IEA’s annual market report on the sector.”
Given limited money and team capacity to update energy generation capacity and even to build new solar panels, this is pretty remarkable growth.
The second point though is as u/Lithuim said — there are limits to what solar power can do for you, and you need to build basically gigantic batteries to store solar power generated during peak daylight in order to provide power at night and on cloudy days. This is definitely happening as well, but these are massive projects that take a long time to plan. This [report by Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/california-set-solar-storage-surge-zonal-grid-plan-2024-04-25/) gives a sense of the complexity, and also the extent to which many places (in this case California) are moving forward to upgrade the grid and create the storage capacity.
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