Growth in metals production for rapid photovoltaics deployment
Name
Kavlak et al. 2014.pdf
Description
Main article
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2.76 MB
Format
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Author(s)
Kavlak, Goksin
Jaffe, Robert L.
McNerney, James M.
Trancik, Jessika E.
Date Issued
June 2014
Journal
Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE 40th Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC)
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Citation
Kavlak, Goksin, James McNerney, Robert L. Jaffe, and Jessika E. Trancik. “Growth in Metals Production for Rapid Photovoltaics Deployment.” 2014 IEEE 40th Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC) (June 2014).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
If global photovoltaics (PV) deployment grows rapidly, the required input materials need to be supplied at an increasing rate. We quantify the effect of PV deployment levels on the scale of annual metals production. If a thin-film PV technology accounts for 25% of electricity generation in 2030, the annual production of thin-film PV metals would need to grow at rates of 15-30% per year. These rates exceed those observed historically for a wide range of metals. In contrast, for the same level of crystalline silicon PV deployment, the required silicon production growth rate falls within the historical range.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Theoretical Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division
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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC.2014.6925187
