If the average panel lifetime is 25 years, and it takes > 25 years to reach "full capacity" (whatever that might mean or whatever level that is at), then by definition there will be a continuous cycle of panel replacement taking place.
It's not as if we get all the PV installed in 12 months and then it lasts for 25 years ...
It's not going to happen soon - solar is still just 8% of world energy production. Even if solar will cover 100% of consumption on a sunny day it still would make sense to buy more panels to have enough output on a cloudy day or in the morning/evening. It's likely production of solar panels will be a good business till at least 2050 and oil business will start to decline before that unless will be propped by corrupt politicians.
But the growth rate has been huge for as long as records have been kept, and was a factor of just over 10x between 2014 and 2024, speeding up more recently.
PV and wind together are likely to start breaking the electricity market severely in the first half of the 2030s; I hope, but it's not certain yet, that ongoing battery expansion will allow the demand for electricity to increase and this can continue to the end of the 2030s, because at the current pace of development those scale up to all our energy needs, not merely our present electrical needs, in a bit less than 20 years from now. (PV alone would do all of it in 20 years at present rate of change).
Call it 10% of the Sahara.
Bear in mind that if we go all-electric, raw energy consumption falls significantly, many panels will be sited on buildings, solar isn't the only renewable, and solar farms aren't ecological deserts - you can graze animals below them.
Honestly, seems like a good trade to me.
No we won't. Even if we waved a magic wand and converted the entire planet to solar today, there would still be new installations tomorrow because energy demand is infinite. There's never enough, we've always used more energy as more energy sources were available.
Funny you would say that, Australia is about to have free power for all for a few hours each day. Yep, there really is that much
https://www.energy.gov.au/news/solar-sharer-offer-cut-electr...
Like the internet today, electricity could have been a flat monthly fee determined by your service line limit (similar to bandwidth) with limits in place for excess use.
Why pay the enormous maintenance cost for a continental scale grid when you can in your neighborhood have a small local grid with solar, wind and storage followed by a tiny diesel/gas turbine ensuring reliability through firming.
When deemed necessary decarbonize the firming by running it on carbon neutral fuels.