The predicted energy demands will reach 28 terawatts by 2050 and 46 terawatts by 2100. The deployment of solar cells as a source of energy will have to expand to a scale of tens of peak terawatts in order to become a noticeable source of energy in the future. Of the current commercial and developmental solar cell technologies, the majority have natural resource limitations that prevent them from reaching a terawatt scale. These limitations include high energy input for crystalline-Si cells, limited material production for GaAs cells, and material scarcity for CdTe, CIGS, dye-sensitized, crystalline-Si, and amorphous Si cells. In this paper, we examine these resource limitations under the best scenarios, i.e. the maximum possible power from each of these solar cell technologies. Without significant technological breakthroughs, these technologies combined would meet only 1 - 2% of our energy demands in 2100.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.