The solar learning curve is the most important economic fact most executives don't know. And it's about to reshape every industry.

For every doubling of installed solar capacity, the cost of solar panels drops by roughly 20-25%. This learning curve has been remarkably stable for four decades — and yet forecasters, including the International Energy Agency, have consistently underestimated its implications.

The reason is simple: human intuition is linear. We expect next year to look roughly like this year, plus or minus a few percent. But exponential curves don’t work that way. Solar energy is now the cheapest source of electricity in history in most of the world, and the cost continues to fall.

This has profound implications far beyond the energy sector. Cheap, abundant energy reshapes manufacturing economics, transportation, agriculture, and computing. It redraws the geopolitical map — nations rich in sunshine gain structural advantages that no amount of fossil fuel reserves can match.

For corporate leaders, the question is no longer whether the energy transition will happen, but how quickly it will reshape their industry’s cost structures, supply chains, and competitive dynamics. The firms that understand exponential curves — and plan for them — will outperform those still using linear forecasts.

I work with leadership teams to build this exponential intuition: to see around corners by understanding the learning curves that are already visible in the data, but invisible to conventional planning.

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This is the kind of analysis Azeem brings to sessions on energy, sustainability, and strategic planning. Begin a conversation.