Photovoltaics at multi-terawatt scale: Waiting is not an option

Haegel, Nancy M.; Verlinden, Pierre; Victoria, Marta; Altermatt, Pietro; Atwater, Harry; Barnes, Teresa; Breyer, Christian; Case, Chris; De Wolf, Stefaan; Deline, Chris; Dharmrin, Marwan; Dimmler, Bernhard; Gloeckler, Markus; Goldschmidt, Jan Christoph; Hallam, Brett; Haussener, Sophia; Holder, Burkhard; Jaeger, Ulrich; Jaeger-Waldau, Arnulf; Kaizuka, Izumi; Kikusato, Hiroshi; Kroposki, Benjamin; Kurtz, Sarah; Matsubara, Koji; Nowak, Stefan; Ogimoto, Kazuhiko; Peter, Christian; Peters, Ian Marius; Philipps, Simon; Powalla, Michael; Rau, Uwe; Reindl, Thomas; Roumpani, Maria; Sakurai, Keiichiro; Schorn, Christian; Schossig, Peter; Schlatmann, Rutger; Sinton, Ron; Slaoui, Abdelilah; Smith, Brittany L.; Schneidewind, Peter; Stanbery, B. j.; Topic, Marko; Tumas, William; Vasi, Juzer; Vetter, Matthias; Weber, Eicke; Weeber, A. W.; Weidlich, Anke; Weiss, Dirk; Bett, Andreas W.

doi:10.1126/science.adf6957

Photovoltaics at multi-terawatt scale: Waiting is not an option

Journal Article · Thu Apr 06 00:00:00 EDT 2023 · Science

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adf6957· OSTI ID:1969987

Haegel, Nancy M. ^[1]; Verlinden, Pierre ^[2]; Victoria, Marta ^[3]; Altermatt, Pietro ^[4]; Atwater, Harry ^[5]; ^[1]; Breyer, Christian ^[6]; Case, Chris ^[7]; De Wolf, Stefaan ^[8]; ^[1]; Dharmrin, Marwan ^[9]; Dimmler, Bernhard ^[1]; Gloeckler, Markus ^[10]; Goldschmidt, Jan Christoph ^[11]; Hallam, Brett ^[12]; Haussener, Sophia ^[13]; Holder, Burkhard ^[14]; Jaeger, Ulrich ^[15]; Jaeger-Waldau, Arnulf ^[16]; Kaizuka, Izumi ^[17] more »

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW (Australia); Yangtze Institute for Solar Technology, Hefei (China); AMROCK Pty Ltd, Sydney (Australia)
Aarhus University (Denmark)
Trina Solar (China)
California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
Lahti University of Technology, Lappeenranta (Finland)
Oxford PV, Yarnton (United Kingdom)
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal (Saudi Arabia)
Osaka University (Japan)
First Solar, Tempe, AZ (United States)
Philipps-University Marburg (Germany)
University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW (Australia)
Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne (EPFL) (Switzerland)
VDE Renewables GmbH, Alzenau (Germany)
RENA Technologies GmbH, Gutenbach (Germany)
European Commission, Brussels (Belgium)
RTS Corporation, Trumbull, CT (United States)
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Fukushima (Japan)
University of California, Merced, CA (United States)
NET Nowak Energy & Technology Ltd, St. Ursen (Switzerland)
University of Tokyo (Japan)
Solarlab Aiko Europe GmbH, Freiburg (Germany)
Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany)
Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Freiburg (Germany)
Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff- Forschung Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart (Germany)
Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) (Singapore)
Strategen, Rancho Cordoba, CA (United Staes)
TransnetBW, Stuttgart (Germany)
Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (Germany)
Sinton Industries, Sinton, TX (United states)
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) (France)
RENA Technologies (Germany)
Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States)
University of Ljubljana (Slovenia)
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras (India)
University of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
Delft University of Technology (Netherlands)
Albert-Ludwigs-University, Freiburg (Germany)
Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Freiburg (Germany); Albert-Ludwigs-University, Freiburg (Germany)

We report a major renewable-energy milestone occurred in 2022: Photovoltaics (PV) exceeded a global installed capacity of 1 TW_dc. But despite considerable growth and cost reduction over time, PV is still a small part of global electricity generation (4 to 5% for 2022), and the window is increasingly closing to take action at scale to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while meeting global energy needs for the future. PV is one of very few options that can be dispatched relatively quickly, but discussions of TW-scale growth at the global level may not be clearly communicating the needed size and speed for renewable-energy installation. A major global risk would be to make poor assumptions or mistakes in modeling and promoting the required PV deployment and industry growth and then realize by 2035 that we were profoundly wrong on the low side and need to ramp up manufacturing and deployment to unrealistic or unsustainable levels.

Research Organization:: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: AC36-08GO28308

OSTI ID:: 1969987

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA-5K00-85113; MainId:85886; UUID:bba22c9e-18a1-4adc-8a14-98093ade4ccb; MainAdminID:69301

Journal Information:: Science, Journal Name: Science Journal Issue: 6640 Vol. 380; ISSN 0036-8075

Publisher:: AAASCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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