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IEA: Solar Could Make Up 25% of Worlwide Energy Production by 2050

May 14, 2010 | 7 Comments

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Valencia, Spain -- Solar electricity could represent up to 20% to 25% of global electricity production by 2050. This is the finding of two new analyses by the International Energy Agency (IEA): the solar Photovoltaic (PV) and Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) roadmaps, launched this week in Spain, during the Mediterranean Solar Plan Conference hosted by the Spanish presidency of the EU.

"The combination of solar photovoltaics and concentrating solar power offers considerable prospects for enhancing energy security while reducing energy-related CO2 emissions by almost six billion tons per year by 2050," said said Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the IEA.

The roadmaps detail the technology milestones that would make this possible, highlighting that the two technologies will deploy in different yet complementary ways: PV mostly for on-grid distributed generation in many regions and CSP largely providing dispatchable electricity at utility scale from regions with brightest sun and clearest skies. PV also helps provide energy access off grid in rural areas. Together, PV and CSP could generate 9000 Terawatt hours of power in 2050.

With effective policies in place, PV on residential and commercial buildings will achieve grid parity – i.e. with electricity grid retail prices – by 2020 in many regions. PV will become competitive at utility-scale in the sunniest regions by 2030 and provide 5% of global electricity, according to the reports.

As PV matures into a mainstream technology, grid integration and management and energy storage become key issues. The PV industry, grid operators and utilities will need to develop new technologies and strategies to integrate large amounts of PV into flexible, efficient and smart grids. By 2050, PV could provide more than 11% of global electricity.

The IEA expects CSP to become competitive for peak and mid-peak loads by 2020 in the sunniest places if appropriate policies are adopted. Its further expansion will depend on the development of dedicated transport lines that will bring CSP electricity to a greater number of large consumption centres. Some of them will have to be developed within large countries such as China, India and the USA. Others will cross border, and many will be needed to link the southern and northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

Thanks to thermal storage, CSP can produce electricity around the clock and will become competitive with base load power by 2025 to 2030. North America will be the largest producer of CSP electricity, followed by North Africa and India. North Africa would most likely export about half its production to Europe, the second largest consumer. The overall contribution of CSP could – like that of PV - represent 11% or more of the global electricity demand by 2050.

Solar Energy

7 Reader Comments

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Anonymous

May 14, 2010

The PV study predicts a 5% market share in 2030 and a 10% share in 2050. It is hard to believe market growth over this duration is going to be linear in time. 40 years from now building integrated PV materials should lead to more rapid adoption than the near term rate. A study that does not predict such a basic trend seems suspect....
Steven

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dimitar-mirchev-14630

May 14, 2010

IEA have always underestimated the growth of any renewable sector they've tried to predict.

In my opinion that percentage will be closer to 50% than to 25%.

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sfortuna

May 18, 2010

I'm sure the total global DEMAND for photovoltaics could well be 25% by 2050, but that represents >5 terawatts of solar production at today's levels. Do you believe the current solar supply chain is capably of producing those quantities in a growing energy economy in our lifetimes? How much silicon, copper, rare earths like selenium and gallium would be needed using today's most advanced technologies? Does the planet have these resources, and can they be mined without horrific consequences?

One way the world governments can help fulfill this aggressive prophesy is to continually invest in R&D for the "next big thing" to be productized. The growth of solar adoption will challenge the traditional crystalline and thin film production capabilities: we need a way to take plant production to multi-gigawatt levels in the next decade. Spray-on technologies and organic/Algal photovoltaic organisms that can be 'grown' may hold promise. Someday we'll look at monocrystalline panels as quaint relics, but it will take coordinated effort and commitment to drive the rapid evolution of PV to achieve "Killer App" economy of scale.

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billp37

May 18, 2010

Semiconductor International ceased publication in April 2010.

Below article by Alexander Braun was scanned before post pulled.

When Green Turns Brown
Since 2002, photovoltaic production has doubled roughly every two years, increasing at a yearly average of 48%, making it the fastest growing energy technology. By 2008, PV installations worldwide had surpassed 15 GW and the end is not in sight. However, as Obi-Wan might paradoxically put it, "There is a Dark Side to sun power.

Eventually, existing installations will reach the end of their useful lifetimes, requiring replacement. One of the seeming contradictions of producing the means to generate clean renewable energy is that you must manufacture them using stuff that can be pretty deadly to the environment such as ammonia, arsine, cadmium sulfate and diborane. And when you discard these installations, effluvia such as arsenic are released during solar cell decomposition, and then there is all that chromium in screws and frames. So what do you do with the things?

At present, no laws forbid someone from just tossing them and adding a little extra deadly chemistry to the closest dump. Obviously, with PV being such an integral part of the "green" movement's chimerical goal of absolutely clean, renewable energy, recycling comes to mind. However, this is nor as simple as separating cardboard from glass on garbage day. But all is not lost...

Some PV manufacturers have expressed their willingness to take discarded modules and reprocess them at their expense. First Solar, for example, will take everything back and reprocess it, producing new panels. The only hitch is that they have to have been First Solar panels to begin with. Other manufacturers have similar plans. It makes sense to recycle, because although the cost of producing the new module from the old is about the same as manufacturing an entirely new one, it takes only 25-30% of the energy to produce. As the volume of discarded systems ready fo

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billp37

May 18, 2010

recycling increases, doubtless the cost factor will become even more attractive.

Nevertheless, the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) believes that manufacturers must do much more to protect the environment by reducing and eventually eliminating the use of all toxic materials, as well as designing their systems for easy recycling. The goal is to have manufacturers take responsibility for the system's entire lifetime and beyond, by having it easily reincarnate as a new product.

PV Cycle, a non-profit environmental organization in the European Union, proposes a voluntary recycling initiative and urges manufacturers to start the collection and recycling of modules now, beginning with at least 65% of the PV modules installed in that continent since 1990, and to recycle 85% of what would otherwise be waste. "We want to make the photovoltaic industry 'double green,"' said Jan Clyneke, PV Cycle's managing director, adding that the PV Cycle recycling plan would be in place across Europe by 2015. By 2020, the EU estimates there will be 35,000 tons of degraded panels.

Although there is still no federal regulation specifically governing PV panel recycling in the United States, as in the EU the industry must meet regulations for waste disposal and hazardous waste; in California's case there is also the Hazardous Waste Control Law to be met, which following Golden State tradition is tougher than federal regulations.

But there is more to PV manufacturing than just recycling. According to the SVTC's white paper, "Toward a Just and Sustainable Solar Energy Industry," although the solar PV boom is still in its infancy, what it describes as "disturbing global trends" are emerging. It goes on to say that a considerable amount of the polysilicon feedstock material - the refined silicon used as crystalline silicon solar cells' basic material - is produced in countries like China, "where

"Although the solar boom is still in its infancy, 'disturbing global trends'

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billp37

May 18, 2010

manufacturing costs and environmental regulatory enforcement are low." It also quotes a March 2008 Washington Post report that at least one plant in China's Henan Province regularly dumps silicon tetrachloride, a toxic waste product of polysilicon manufacturing, on nearby farmland. The Post quoted Li Xiaoping, deputy director of the Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences: "Crops cannot grow on this, and it is not suitable for people to live nearby."
It is an open secret that besides what the West would consider miserly salaries as well as a lack of benefits and humane labor laws, another reason why manufacturing has moved to Asia is the region's lack of strong environmental laws and stiff enforcement. What is good for business is not necessarily good for the planet. All these matters must be sorted out, otherwise the concept of "green" energy will carry a sarcastic connotation. With current technologies a perfect solution is not an option; manufacturers and environmentalists both must be willing to show flexibility and compromise.

www.semiconductor.net April 2010 SEMICONDUCTOR International

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douglas-prince-175356

May 18, 2010

Coming Soon to Wal-Mart! Chinese PV panels made with the skins of our victims! No need to worry! We have plenty of bodies to pile up! And that puts savings in YOUR pocket!

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