Novel Silver-lean screen-printed silicon solar cells for terawatt-scale PV deployment

Description of field of research:

Terawatt-scale photovoltaic (PV) deployment is critical to reducing carbon emissions from fossil fules and limiting global temperature rise. The major barrier to achieving TW-scale production is the high demand for silver; in 2021 along with 191 GW of production, the PV industry used 12% of the global primary silver supply. Silver consumption is currently 15 mg/w, 26 mg/W and 34 mg/W for PERC, TOPCon and SHJ respectively. To sustainable reach TW-scale production, this must be reduced to less than 5 mg/W for any cell technologies. ITRPV predicts a reduction in silver consumption to roughly half by 2031, however this is still well above the 5 mg/W target required for TW-scale production. Silver is also the largest non-silicon cost of making a solar cell, accounting for 34-54% of the cell manufacturing cost ($/W) for industrial screen-printed PERC, TOPCon and SHJ solar cells. Reducing the silver consumption is therefore not only crucial for achieving TW-scale production without depleting global silver supply, but also a key path to ultra-low-cost PV.