Metals Production Requirements for Rapid Photovoltaics Deployment

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how rapid growth in photovoltaic deployment could strain metals production, highlighting potential constraints and providing a framework to assess scalability of materials for energy technologies.

Contribution

It introduces a framework to compare projected metals growth requirements for PV deployment against historical production growth rates.

Findings

Indium and tellurium growth rates could exceed historical trends if certain PV technologies dominate.

Silicon production growth remains within historical ranges even with full 2030 PV deployment.

The framework helps evaluate scalability of materials for various energy technologies.

Abstract

If global photovoltaics (PV) deployment grows rapidly, the required input materials need to be supplied at an increasing rate. In this paper, we quantify the effect of PV deployment levels on the scale of metals production. For example, we find that if cadmium telluride {copper indium gallium diselenide} PV accounts for more than 3% {10%} of electricity generation by 2030, the required growth rates for the production of indium and tellurium would exceed historically-observed production growth rates for a large set of metals. In contrast, even if crystalline silicon PV supplies all electricity in 2030, the required silicon production growth rate would fall within the historical range. More generally, this paper highlights possible constraints to the rate of scaling up metals production for some PV technologies, and outlines an approach to assessing projected metals growth requirements against an ensemble of past growth rates from across the metals production sector. The framework developed in this paper may be useful for evaluating the scalability of a wide range of materials and devices, to inform technology development in the laboratory, as well as public and private research investment.