Photovoltaics at multi-terawatt scale: Waiting is not an option

Haegel, N. M.; Verlinden, Pierre J.; Victoria, Marta; Altermatt, Pietro P.; Atwater, Harry A.; Barnes, Teresa M.; Breyer, Christian; Case, Chris; Wolf, Stefaan De; Deline, Chris; Dharmrin, Marwan; Dimmler, B.; Gloeckler, Markus; Goldschmidt, Jan Christoph; Hallam, Brett; Haussener, Sophia; Holder, Burkhard; Jaeger, Ulrich; Arnulf, Jaeger-Waldau; Kaizuka, Izumi; Kikusato, Hiroshi; Kroposki, Benjamin; Kurtz, Sarah; Matsubara, Koji; Nowak, Stefan; Ogimoto, Kazuhiko; Pristipino, Christian; Peters, Ian Marius; Philipps, Simon P.; Powalla, Michael; Rau, Uwe; Reindl, Thomas; Roumpani, Maria; Sakurai, Katsutoshi; Schorn, Christian; Schossig, Peter; Schlatmann, Rutger; Sinton, R.A.; Slaoui, A.; Smith, Brittany L.; Schneidewind, Peter; Stanbery, B.J.; Topič, Marko; Tumas, William; Vasi, J.; Vetter, Matthias; Weber, E. R.; Weeber, A W; Weidlich, Anke; Weiss, Dirk N.; Bett, Andreas W.

doi:10.1126/science.adf6957

Cited by 71 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…These uncertainties were large compared to the climate change impacts and uncertainties among scenarios (figure A2) and GCMs (figure A3), suggesting that improved technology has the potential to comfortably offset climate change impacts. PV module technologies are already improving rapidly from conventional Silicon-based to thin film, multijunction, perovskites, organic and quantum dot technologies with improved efficiency and lower costs, and better estimates of their future capacities and infrastructural needs are a priority for further research (Creutzig et al 2017, Way et al 2022, Haegel et al 2023.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling the global photovoltaic potential on land and its sensitivity to climate change

Saxena,

Brown,

Arneth

et al. 2023

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Solar photovoltaic (PV) energy is fundamental for decarbonizing the global economy and supporting the renewable energy transitions that are needed to combat climate change. Potential solar power production at a given location is a function of climatic variables that will change over time and so climate change needs to be accounted for in PV potential estimation. The future potential of PV in response to climate change has not previously been assessed consistently and globally across alternative scenarios. We develop global gridded estimates of PV potential between 2020 and 2100 as a function of spatial, climatic, technological and infrastructural conditions. We find a global technical potential of 175 111 T W h yr−1 in 2050, which changes by between ca. −19% (high-emission scenario) and +16% (low-emission scenario), with larger geographic variations within these scenarios. We perform a sensitivity analysis to identify key uncertainties and assess the scope for emerging PV technologies to offset negative climate impacts. We find that suboptimal orientation and temperature losses have the largest negative effects (reducing PV potential by up to ca. 50% and ca. 10% respectively), but that new technologies may be able to generate gains of more than 200% if successfully deployed worldwide. Solar power can make an important contribution to energy production over the coming decades and the demand for renewable energy could be met by PV deployment on between 0.5% and 1% of the global land area, provided its deployment accounts for the location-specific impacts of climate change.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling the global photovoltaic potential on land and its sensitivity to climate change

Saxena,

Brown,

Arneth

et al. 2023

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…On the other hand, renewable energy technologies have had a tremendous surge in development in recent years, with reality once again outpacing even many of the most optimistic development scenarios. [21][22][23] Current studies suggest that a similar process could take place in the field of hydrogen technology in the next few years. [18] It is therefore extremely important to use the most up-to-date technical and economic parameters for potential studies such as those in this article.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Influence of Falling Costs for Electrolyzers on the Location Factors for Green Hydrogen Production

et al. 2023

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A fast and extensive build‐up of green hydrogen production is a crucial element for the global energy transition. The availability of low‐cost renewable energy at high operating hours of the electrolyzer is a central criterion in today's choice of location for green hydrogen production. It is analyzed how decreasing electrolyzer costs that are expected by many may influence this choice. The energy system optimization framework ESTRAM is used to find the optimum configuration of wind turbine, photovoltaic (PV), and electrolyzer capacity for covering a given hydrogen demand by locally produced green hydrogen in different European locations. It is found that PV is part of the cost‐optimal solution in 96% of 1372 statistical regions in Europe. Decreasing electrolyzer costs are favoring the utilization of PV in wind–solar hybrid plants. At low electrolyzer costs, pure solar hydrogen outperforms the hybrid variant in many places if hydrogen storage is available, even with few full operating hours per year. At the same time, production costs are converging significantly. The article adds a new perspective to the discussion, as it is systematically shown how further technology development may lead to a shift in locational advantages for green hydrogen production, what should be considered to avoid stranded assets when building infrastructure.

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“…The low cost of renewables and recent geopolitical events have catalyzed a mass-scale adoption of renewable energy sources that will further gain momentum in coming years. 1 This shift towards intermittent sources, however, poses unprecedented challenges for power grids due to mismatches between supply and demand both in time and, crucially, location. For instance, solar power generation drops off in the evening just before peak demand, creating the well-known “duck curve” that represents the difference between energy demand and the amount of available solar energy throughout the day.…”

Section: Mainmentioning

confidence: 99%