Pioneering research led by Northumbria University shows how the global solar industry can expand production of photovoltaic technology while further reducing its carbon footprint.
As solar deployment accelerates to meet climate targets and rising electricity demand, the work addresses the challenge of ensuring this growth is both scalable and sustainable, rather than simply shifting environmental burdens elsewhere in the energy system.
The research, published in Nature Communications, examines the full life cycle of photovoltaic silicon technology, from raw material extraction to the production of state-of-the-art solar panels that are expected to dominate the market until 2035.
Researchers from Northumbria University and the Universities of Birmingham, Oxford and Warwick are quantifying how advances in solar cell efficiency and changes in manufacturing practices can deliver environmental benefits far beyond just reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Using a detailed life cycle assessment, the team evaluates how the different electricity mixes used in production affect the overall environmental impact and shows that realistic decarbonization of global energy systems during production could prevent up to 8.2 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions.
According to the authors, that size of avoided emissions corresponds to about 6.3 percent of the remaining global carbon budget, compatible with the Paris Climate Agreement’s goal of limiting temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“Solar photovoltaics are a crucial technology that can now be used globally to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create energy security,” said Professor Neil Beattie, professor of energy innovation at Northumbria University and director of the study. “This is especially important as our demand for electricity will soar over the next decade, driven by applications in transport, heating and digital infrastructure for AI.
“As we scale up solar photovoltaics to multi-terawatt levels to meet this demand, it is important that we do so in a sustainable way. Our research shows that significant savings in environmental impact – including carbon dioxide emissions – are possible through manufacturing.
“More specifically, we believe this impact is sensitive to the composition of the electricity mix where the solar panels are made and we should work to decarbonize this as much as possible.”
Professor John Murphy, Chair of Electronic Materials at the University of Birmingham and co-author, said silicon-based photovoltaic technologies are already immediately relevant to the UK’s drive for Net Zero and will continue to play an important role in decarbonising the energy system.
He noted that the work stems from a new collaboration between four UK research groups focusing on sustainability across the entire solar photovoltaic supply chain, from raw materials to production and ultimately to end-of-life treatment and recycling.
Co-author Sebastian Bonilla, an associate professor of materials science at the University of Oxford, said the sector has reached a pivotal moment as solar energy rapidly scales up and becomes a large part of global electricity generation.
He added that the study uniquely identifies the environmental impacts of the continued expansion of solar energy and provides guidance on how choices of materials, device architectures and manufacturing sites can minimize damage while maximizing the benefits of clean electricity at the terawatt scale.
In addition to climate change, the researchers assess 16 categories of environmental impacts, highlighting the tradeoffs that must be managed as technologies advance and production scales up.
A key finding is that the highly efficient next-generation technology can reduce the climate impact of panels by 6.5 percent, but can also increase critical mineral depletion by 15.2 percent due to the greater use of silver in the electrical contacts of solar cells.
That result points to an urgent need for innovation in alternative contact materials such as copper and underlines the importance of treating sustainability as a systems-level issue rather than optimizing a single metric such as carbon emissions.
The authors argue that the analysis can help industrial decision makers and policy makers identify where targeted improvements in the supply chain will deliver the greatest environmental benefits as production grows to terawatt levels.
Looking ahead to 2035, the study shows that solar panels installed by that date could avoid at least 25 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions compared to conventional energy generation in less than half their operational life.
Co-author of the study Dr. Nicholas Grant, associate professor at the University of Warwick, said terawatt-scale photovoltaic production requires a sharper focus on the full carbon footprint and that targeted supply chain improvements could support rapid global deployment while avoiding gigatons of production-related emissions if the systems are installed by 2035.
Beattie highlighted that even when the impact of production is taken into account, solar photovoltaics remains one of the least impactful and most sustainable options for electricity generation throughout its life cycle.
He said the priority now should be to accelerate implementation while improving manufacturing practices so that the environmental benefits of the technology are maximized as it scales.
Research report: Maximizing environmental savings through the production of silicon photovoltaic solar energy until 2035
