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Commercial progress and challenges for photovoltaics

Nature Energy volume 1, Article number: 15015 (2016) Cite this article

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The past five years have seen substantial cost reductions and greatly increased uptake of photovoltaics. Growth is being driven by ongoing improvements in both silicon solar cell costs and performance, making the commercialization of new technologies increasingly difficult.

Continuing, incremental improvements to silicon cell technology can — and probably will — carry the industry through to such low prices. However, it is inconceivable, to this author at least, that standard silicon modules, even when developed to their full potential, represent the ultimate photovoltaic solution and that ‘next-generation’ technology will not at least be positioned for market entry over the next 25 years.

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Figure 1: Silicon photovoltaic technology, annual market composition and associated spot prices for silicon wafers, cells and modules.
Figure 2: Evolution of module manufacturing costs and energy conversion efficiencies.
Figure 3: Tandem solar cells and their limiting efficiencies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Martin A. Green is at the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics, School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia.,

    Martin A. Green

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  1. Martin A. Green
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Correspondence to Martin A. Green.

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Green, M. Commercial progress and challenges for photovoltaics. Nat Energy 1, 15015 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2015.15

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