research institutes, gathered in Pacific Grove, California, for the 4th Terawatt Workshop. Photo by Harrison Dreves, NREL
Approximately 70 researchers from 14 countries gathered in California earlier this
month to discuss the progress toward deploying multiple terawatts of solar power around
the globe to transition to a sustainable energy system. Representatives of the U.S.
Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) held high-level
discussions with international colleagues about the state of the photovoltaics (PV)
industry.
This year marked the 4th Terawatt Workshop, led by representatives from NREL, Germany’s
Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, and Japan’s National Institute of Advanced
Industrial Science and Technology.
Except for a gap during COVID-19, the Terawatt Workshop has met every two years since
2016. That first meeting addressed the challenge of reaching 3 TW of installed global
PV capacity by 2030. The participants extended that vision at the 2018 meeting, to
about 10 terawatts, and predicted the global cumulative PV capacity would reach a
terawatt within the next five years. The world crossed that threshold in 2022.
“The tremendous learning curve in PV over the past decades has resulted in continuous
technology advances, major cost reductions, and deployment growth often exceeding
predictions,” said Nancy Haegel, the director of the National Center for Photovoltaics
at NREL. “The workshop participants were very engaged in learning from one another
and discussing what the growth and learning of the next decade could bring.”
She was joined at the conference by six colleagues from NREL: Teresa Barnes, Emily
Warren, Kirstin Alberi, Joe Berry, Ingrid Repins, and Samantha Reese.
The workshop opened with reports and discussion of PV growth trajectories and challenges
around the world, with a focus on India, Europe, China, the United States, Australia,
and Kenya. This “trip around the globe” highlighted both the regional opportunities
and challenges to PV growth and its contributions to meeting carbon dioxide emission
reduction goals. A growing number of future scenarios shows PV playing major roles in helping countries
move to a sustainable energy system.
“PV technology has demonstrated increasingly great success and has become a mainstream
for the world energy supply. However, more research is needed in order to push the
efficiency even higher and to create a circular economy,” said Andreas Bett, director
of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems. “PV is well on track to provide
the majority of the world’s energy in a cost-effective, clean, and sustainable way.”
During the workshop, participants discussed PV technology innovation for the multiterawatt
era, with a focus on tandem technology, which promises to significantly extend PV
efficiency beyond existing limits. Tandem technologies combine two types of solar
cells into one device, allowing increased absorption of light from the sun. Major
research is underway, but there are still challenges remaining to achieve industrial
production of a higher efficiency, reliable tandem technology for terrestrial power
production. The workshop heard from leading researchers and industry partners on their
progress and challenges in this area.
Another key topic was the issue of long-term sustainability and circularity for the
industry, as it moves toward future steady-state production, installation, and replacement
at multiterawatt scale heading toward 2050. Workshop participants agreed that the
increased production is bringing a new set of research and development challenges
to the PV community. Targeted research is needed to drive innovation and support industry
efforts to continue to reduce levels of embedded energy and carbon and raw material
use, while leveraging global learning and growing diversification of manufacturing
to also continue to advance performance and reliability.
Just as the PV industry has advanced and grown to lead the way on renewable energy
in 2024, with the majority of new electricity generating capacity worldwide each year
now coming from solar, it is preparing for the transition to its role to provide a
majority of the world’s energy needs.
The participants from the 2022 workshop suggested that about 75 terawatts or more of globally deployed PV will be needed
by 2050 to meet decarbonization goals.
The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology focuses on the
creation and practical realization of technologies useful to Japanese industry and
society and on bridging the gap between innovative technological seeds and commercialization.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems stands out as the largest solar
energy research institute in Europe.
NREL is the only Department of Energy national laboratory exclusively devoted to research
and analysis into renewable energy and sustainable energy technologies. Within the
PV programs, researchers support the development of new designs and manufacturing
processes for solar materials, components, and systems, with an emphasis on improved
performance, reliability, and service life.
Learn more about solar energy and photovoltaic research at NREL.
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