Growth in metals production for rapid photovoltaics deployment

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...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kavlak, Goksin (Contributor), Jaffe, Robert L. (Contributor), McNerney, James M. (Contributor), Trancik, Jessika E. (Contributor)
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Theoretical Physics (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division (Contributor)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2015-03-20T12:05:05Z.
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Online Access:Get fulltext
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100 1 0 |a Kavlak, Goksin  |e author 
100 1 0 |a Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Theoretical Physics  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Trancik, Jessika E.  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Kavlak, Goksin  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a McNerney, James M.  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Jaffe, Robert L.  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Trancik, Jessika E.  |e contributor 
700 1 0 |a Jaffe, Robert L.  |e author 
700 1 0 |a McNerney, James M.  |e author 
700 1 0 |a Trancik, Jessika E.  |e author 
245 0 0 |a Growth in metals production for rapid photovoltaics deployment 
260 |b Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE),   |c 2015-03-20T12:05:05Z. 
856 |z Get fulltext  |u http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/96097 
520 |a 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. 
520 |a United States. Dept. of Energy (Grant DE-EE0006131) 
546 |a en_US 
655 7 |a Article 
773 |t Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE 40th Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC)