TY - GEN
T1 - Natural resource limitations to terawatt-scale solar photovoltaics
AU - Tao, Coby S.
AU - Jiang, Jiechiao
AU - Tao, Meng
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - The deployment of solar photovoltaics has to expand to a scale of tens of peak terawatts in order to become a noticeable source of energy in the future. All the current commercial solar cell technologies suffer from natural resource limitations that prevent them from reaching terawatt scales. These limitations include high energy input for wafer-Si cells and material scarcity for CdTe, CIGS, wafer-Si and amorphous Si cells. We examine these resource limitations under the best scenarios, i.e. the maximum possible power from each of the cell technologies. Without significant technological breakthroughs, these technologies combined would meet only 1-2% of our energy demands in 2100. Without significant increase in raw material production, the deployment of these technologies combined would likely plateau at 100-200 GWp/yr. This analysis identifies several high-impact research directions for amorphous Si cells including substitution of Ag and ITO with earth-abundant Al and ZnO or TiO2-based TCO.
AB - The deployment of solar photovoltaics has to expand to a scale of tens of peak terawatts in order to become a noticeable source of energy in the future. All the current commercial solar cell technologies suffer from natural resource limitations that prevent them from reaching terawatt scales. These limitations include high energy input for wafer-Si cells and material scarcity for CdTe, CIGS, wafer-Si and amorphous Si cells. We examine these resource limitations under the best scenarios, i.e. the maximum possible power from each of the cell technologies. Without significant technological breakthroughs, these technologies combined would meet only 1-2% of our energy demands in 2100. Without significant increase in raw material production, the deployment of these technologies combined would likely plateau at 100-200 GWp/yr. This analysis identifies several high-impact research directions for amorphous Si cells including substitution of Ag and ITO with earth-abundant Al and ZnO or TiO2-based TCO.
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M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84887852801
SN - 9784863483118
T3 - Proceedings of the 20th International Workshop on Active-Matrix Flatpanel Displays and Devices: TFT Technologies and FPD Materials, AM-FPD 2013
SP - 211
EP - 214
BT - Proceedings of the 20th International Workshop on Active-Matrix Flatpanel Displays and Devices
T2 - 20th International Workshop on Active-Matrix Flatpanel Displays and Devices: TFT Technologies and FPD Materials, AM-FPD 2013
Y2 - 2 July 2013 through 5 July 2013
ER -