More PV manufacturers are expected to adopt copper metallization by 2026 – SPE

January 21, 2026
Lior Kahana

Silver prices are rising, with $100 per troy ounce within reach, putting heavy pressure on the PV supply chain, where at current levels at least a fifth of module costs go to silver for cell metallization. Highlighting this trend, China-based metallization paste supplier DK Electronic Materials revealed that a gigawatt-scale customer will use its copper-rich paste for commercial production.

“We expect 2026 to be the first year of large-scale mass production for high copper paste solutions. GW-scale TOPCon customer has already expressed ambitions for much broader deployment, while other Tier-1 cell and module manufacturers are actively accelerating their evaluation and adoption efforts,” Kevin Nan, vice president of technology and marketing at DK Electronic Materials, told reporters. pv magazine. “It is expected that a broader group of customers will reach mass production level implementation by 2026. In particular, high copper paste content solutions are emerging as a meaningful differentiator in the cost structure of high-performance TOPCon modules, going beyond simple reductions in metallization costs at the cell level.”

According to Nan, some customers appear to be flexible given the trade-off between silver reduction and conversion efficiency. “If customers prioritize maximum silver reduction, conversion efficiency can be marginally below the production line baseline,” he said. “In contrast, at moderate to high levels of silver reduction, conversion efficiency can match or even slightly exceed the benchmark. Based on aggregated customer validation results and mass production data, the cell conversion efficiency achieved with our high copper paste solutions is broadly comparable to existing mass production benchmarks.”

However, Andreas Lorenz of the German Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fraunhofer ISE) argues that the PV industry should avoid any trade-off. “In my opinion, lower module efficiency is not acceptable at this time, even though it could reduce module costs,” he said pv magazine. “The high pressure from rising silver prices will greatly accelerate the development of solutions for silver reduction and replacement. Major PV manufacturers have already announced the use of copper-containing back contact pastes and TOPCon cells to address this challenge.”

Lorenz, head of the printing group at Fraunhofer ISE, added that silver-coated copper pastes, like those from DK Electronic Materials, are for now the most effective direct approach to reducing silver consumption. However, this approach does not eliminate the use of silver, and other methods are currently being researched and considered for the long term.

“The possibility of a further increasing supply shortage for physical silver and sharply rising prices make silver a very high priority issue for the PV industry,” said Lorenz. “I am convinced that screen printing will remain the method of choice for the metallization of silicon solar cells. Possible long-term alternatives are pastes based on copper, nickel or aluminum instead of silver. At the R&D level, promising results have already been demonstrated for several paste-based approaches. However, there is still some work to be done as certain questions, such as the long-term stability in the module, have not yet been fully answered.”

Nan from DK Electronic Materials has emphasized that, unlike high copper paste solutions, “pure copper paste solutions are not yet technically mature. They will need additional time to reduce copper oxidation, clarify and empirically validate copper diffusion risk management mechanisms, and establish a supportive industrial ecosystem that includes materials and equipment. While the short-term driver for GW-scale TOPCon customers to mass-produce high copper paste to accelerate the pressure from rising silver prices, the medium to long-term driver lies in sustainability issues surrounding the supply of photovoltaic-grade silver.”