Solar PV growth sharpens focus on metals supply chain

The expected rapid growth of renewables for power generation, especially solar photovoltaic (PV), underscores the need for minor metals to build the components but bottlenecks in the supply chain remain a cause for concern.

Solar PV is becoming "the new king of electricity supply and looks set for massive expansion", the IEA said in its World Energy Outlook 2020 report.

From 2020 to 2030, solar PV grows by an average of 13pc/yr because of supportive policies in more than 130 countries, maturing technologies and low financing costs, the IEA said.

But the pace of change increases the need for reliable supplies of the critical minerals and metals that are vital to secure this industry transformation as the world accelerates plans to develop a low-carbon economy.

Among the wide array of metals used in the solar PV industry, gallium, germanium, indium and silicon are all included in a list of 30 critical raw materials identified by the EU as of high importance to the region's economy and facing high risk regarding supply.

Wafer-based crystalline silicon (c-Si) PV technology dominates the commercial market, while other technologies include thin-film (TF) using amorphous silicon (a-Si), copper-indium-gallium-diselenide-disulphide (CIGS) or cadmium-telluride (CdTe).

These critical materials are also used in semiconductors and remain in growing demand from the electronics sector, further raising the need for a stable and diverse source of supply.

The EU supplied 6pc of the raw materials and 5pc for the processed materials used in the PV systems but found that "the most vulnerable step" in the supply chain is at the component manufacturing level, the European Commission's Joint Research Centre said in a September study.

China dominates all four steps in the supply chain — raw material production, processed materials, components and assemblies — with the component level market share at 89pc, the study found.

"Insufficient manufacturing capacity of solar cells appears to be the weakest link of the solar PV value chain in the EU. Therefore, domestic manufacturing opportunities need to be improved," the JRC study recommends.

By Anuradha Ramanathan