Photovoltaics at multi-terawatt scale: Waiting is not an option
A major renewable-energy milestone occurred in 2022: Photovoltaics (PV) exceeded a global installed capacity of 1 TWdc. 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.
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;
ERFURT Gunter;
GLOECKLER Markus;
GOLDSCHMIDT Jan-Christoph;
HALLAM Brett;
HAUSSENER S.;
HOLDER Burkhard;
JAEGER Ulrich;
JAEGER-WALDAU Arnulf;
KAIZUKA Izumi;
KIKUSATO Hiroshi;
KROPOSKI Benjamin;
KURTZ Sarah;
MATSUBARA Koji;
NOWAK Stefan;
OGIMOTO Kazuhiko;
PETER Christian;
PETERS I Marius;
PHILIPPS Simon;
POWALLA Michael;
RAU Uwe;
REINDL Thomas;
ROUMPANI Maria;
SAKURAI Keiichiro;
SCHORN Christian;
SCHOSSIG Peter;
SCHLATMANN Rutger;
SLAOUI Abdelilah;
SINTON Ron;
SMITH Brittany L.;
SCHNEIDEWIND Peter;
STANBERY Bill J.;
TOPIC Marko;
TUMAS William;
VASI Juzer;
VETTER Matthias;
WEBER Eike;
WEEBER Arthur;
WEIDLICH Anke;
WEISS Dirk;
BETT A.;
2023-04-26
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
JRC131709
0036-8075 (online),
www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.adf6957,
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC131709,
10.1126/science.adf6957 (online),
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