The silver learning curve for photovoltaics and projected silver demand for net‐zero emissions by 2050

Abstract

The clean energy transition could see the cumulative installed capacity of photovoltaics increase from 1 TW before the end of 2022 to 15-60 TW by 2050, creating a significant silver demand risk. Here, we present a silver learning curve for the photovoltaic industry with a learning rate of 20.3 ± 0.8%. Maintaining business as usual with a dominance of p-type technology could require over 20% of the current annual silver supply by 2027 and a cumulative 450-520 kt of silver until 2050, approximately 85-98% of the current global silver reserves. A rapid transition to higher efficiency tunnel oxide passivated contact and silicon heterojunction cell technologies in their present silver-intensive forms could increase and accelerate silver demand. As we approach annual production capacities of over 1 TW by 2030, addressing the silver issue requires increased efforts in research and development to increase the silver learning rate by 30%, with existing silver-lean and silver-free metallisation approaches including copper plating and screen-printing of aluminium and copper.

Implementation of nickel and copper as cost‐effective alternative contacts in silicon solar cells

“…Their dominance in the photovoltaic (PV) market is largely due to their excellent conductivity and solderability 1–4 . However, despite its advantages, the use of screen‐printed Ag contacts has a high cost, contributing up to 40% of the total cell production expense, posing a major barrier to scaling and achieving cost‐effective solar cells 5–7 . Consequently, there is a pressing need to investigate alternative metals that have the potential to form ohmic contacts with Si substrate while reducing overall production costs.…”

Toward TCO‐Free Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells: Effect of TCO Layers in Electrical Transport and Stability

“…[14,15] To meet such a huge demand, the availability of rare elements being used in PV manufacturing and installation is a critical matter. [16,17] The price of rare elements is generally volatile in the supply chain, which is a serious risk for stable production of PV systems. For example, Ag consumption for metallization is expected to bottleneck the future expansion of the c-Si-based PV systems, and therefore the replacement of Ag with more abundant metals like Cu [10,[18][19][20] and Al [21] has been focused as a crucial task.…”

Optical modeling and characterization of bifacial SiNx/AlOx dielectric layers for surface passivation and antireflection in PERC

“…Photovoltaic devices convert direct solar energy into electricity without pollution or noise, making them long‐lasting, reliable, robust, clean, and versatile. With the advancement of technology and awareness of clean energy, the PV module industry is growing at almost 30% annually 2 . Solar cell technology is now available at low cost and extraordinary conversion efficiency, 2.50 $/Wp at the commercial scale and 3.50 $/W p on the residential scale and >23% efficiency 3 .…”

“…With the advancement of technology and awareness of clean energy, the PV module industry is growing at almost 30% annually. 2 Solar cell technology is now available at low cost and extraordinary conversion efficiency, 2.50 $/Wp at the commercial scale and 3.50 $/W p on the residential scale and >23% efficiency. 3 Most standard solar cells consist of a silicon PN junction.…”