New research from Europe shows that the global PV industry needs to 14,000 tons of silver per year in 2030, with the global delivery only 34,000 tons. The scientists said that more efforts must be made to reduce the silver content in Solar Cellen from Topcon and hetero junction.
Researchers from Ghent University in Belgium and the ENGIE Laborelec unit of the French energy giant have investigated how much silver could be needed by the PV industry in 2030 and have discovered that silver shortages can become more often.
“Our work emphasizes the role of new C-SI designs such as Topcon and SHJ when raising the silver demand, and by considering competing sectors, it offers an extensive picture of total supply and demand by 2030,” the associated author of the research, Vittoria Cattaneo, told PV Magazine. “In doing so, the research quantifies the scale of the challenge and shows that it is a problem that the industry will have to tackle without delay.”
The researchers carried out their analysis based on PV implementation scenarios that consider data on individual solar cell technologies such as PERC, Topcon, Heterojunction (HJT), Back-Contact (BC) and Tandem. They also used forecasts for market share and silver intensity data released by the German machines and equipment manufacturers Association (VDMA).
The research group also outlined two PV production scenarios -a baseline scenario that estimates that global PV production capacity in 2023 is increasing by 500 GW/year to more than 1 two -final year in 2030, and an accelerated scenario that projects PV -production against 2030.
In addition, the academics considered five different scenarios for the global silver market: a moderate scenario based on the baseline PV production and baseline process for silver intensity reduction; a high demand scenario that links the accelerated PV production and baseline silver intensity reductions; A low demand scenario that projects a low demand for both the PV and the silver industry; An innovative scenario similar to the big demand, but with accelerated silver intensity reduction; And an unlikely 100 % PV PV Silver -requirement, assuming that PERC will regain full dominance on the market.
“The comparison of the Perc scenario with the remaining will make it possible to assess the effect that the transition to more silver-intensive PV technologies, in particular Topcon and HJT, can have the silver demand within the PV industry,” the scientists specified.
Moreover, they outlined two different scenarios for the global silver supply by 2030: one with the question that is expected to increase by 3% on an annual basis, driven by GDP growth; And one with the question that grows by more than 3%, powered by competing industrial demand. “Projections for the silver demand in the PV industry and competing sectors were combined to predict the total implicit silver demand in the period 2023-2030. For simplicity, from the eight possible scenarios, only the three more representative were selected,” they said.
The analysis showed that the total silver demand is expected to reach 48,000 to 52,000 row in 2030, with the offer sufficient to reach only 34,000 row. In the meantime, the PV industry is expected to grow its silver demand in 2030 by a factor of 1.6 to 2.3 to 10,000-14,000 row, as a result of a higher silver consumption in new cell designs such as Topcon and HJT. “As a result, the silver demand from the PV industry could be 29-41 % of the expected offer in 2030,” the academics emphasized.
The scientists said more efforts must be made to reduce the silver content in topcon and hjt sun cells. “In particular, policy should preferably support the development of solutions that make it possible to reduce silver consumption without major changes to existing production processes,” they concluded.
Their findings are available in the study “Forecast of the silver demand and the range by 2030: impact of silver -intensive photovoltaic cells and sectoral competition“Published in Resources, preservation and recycling.
“Our work is intended to increase the consciousness of industry about this growing problem, the emphasis that the availability of raw materials is crucial for the energy transition and thus evokes a more efficient management of silver in the complete life cycle of PV and other products. PV technologies are very quickly achieved in the past Toe. “Our findings underline the importance of continuing and accelerating innovation in this direction. Further reductions of PV silver use or replacement by more abundant materials will be essential to maintain large-scale PV implementation. On the supply side, expanding silver recycling is also the key to reducing potential limitations.”
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