The Resource Demand of Terawatt-Scale Perovskite Tandem Photovoltaics

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the resource requirements for scaling perovskite tandem photovoltaics to multi-terawatt levels, highlighting material supply constraints and sustainability considerations crucial for future deployment.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of mineral and material supply challenges for large-scale perovskite PV deployment and suggests pathways for sustainable material choices.

Findings

Material supply may not limit expansion if key materials are replaced.

Organic charge transport materials face scalability issues.

Sustainable material selection is essential for large-scale deployment.

Abstract

Photovoltaics (PV) is the most important energy conversion technology for cost-efficient climate change mitigation. To reach the international climate goals, the annual PV module production capacity must be expanded to multi-terawatt scale. Economic and resource constraints demand the implementation cost-efficient multi-junction technologies, for which perovskite-based tandem technologies are highly promising. In this work, the resource demand of the emerging perovskite PV technology is investigated, considering two factors of supply criticality, namely mining capacity for minerals, as well as production capacity for synthetic materials. Overall, the expansion of perovskite PV to a multi-terawatt scale may not be limited by material supply if certain materials, especially cesium and indium, can be replaced. Moreover, organic charge transport materials face unresolved scalability challenges. This study demonstrates that, besides the improvement of efficiency and stability, perovskite PV research needs also to be guided by sustainable materials choices and design-for-recycling considerations.