A polysilicon manufacturing unit in China
Picture: Daqo New Power
From pv journal USA
Silicon is the semiconductor materials on the coronary heart of most photo voltaic cells. Due to technological advances, photo voltaic now powers the world with a lot much less silicon.
Analysis by Fraunhofer ISE confirmed that in 2004, 16 grams of silicon had been wanted to provide one watt of photo voltaic cells. By 2021, that quantity will drop to simply over 2 grams. That 12 months, when the world’s largest photo voltaic farm – simply over 5 MW – was turned on in Germany, it used 150 W photo voltaic panels. At the moment, simply one in every of these modules would come with 2,400 grams of processed materials.
In 2021, Maxeon signed an settlement the place 1.8 million Efficiency 5 UPP photo voltaic modules will function the powerhouse of the eighth largest photo voltaic facility on the planet – the Primergy Photo voltaic farm in Nevada. If we think about that this 545 W panel makes use of 2.2 grams of silicon per watt, we get 1,199 grams per module. That is roughly 360% greater output per photo voltaic panel – utilizing solely half the silicon.
In fact, we are going to use extra silicon in 2023 than in 2004. In 2004, we deployed 1,044 MW of solar energy, utilizing simply over 16,000 kg of silicon worldwide. Bloomberg studies that 268 GW of photo voltaic has been deployed by 2022, which is about 250 occasions higher capability than was deployed in 2004. At 2.2 grams per watt, 268 GW makes use of roughly 590,000 kilo of silicon, or 35 occasions extra silicon than used. in 2004.
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