Solar Panel Technologies: How Innovators Will Explore New Materials
Silicon and aluminum are primary solar panel components that collect energy for use in residential and commercial properties. While the world has a near-infinite aluminum supply, aluminum processing takes so much energy that possibly offsets the solar energy savings the technology promises. Fortunately, this will urge many innovators to use other alternative materials and create unique designs that will help them venture into new territories for solar energy.
Innovators may find inspiration in the aluminum production problem by finding ways to achieve better energy efficiency in present solar panels, effectively introducing cost reduction and minimal solar panel real estate on roofing materials. Plus, the lack of alternative materials will help stabilize the price of aluminum in many countries because the dwindling pure aluminum supply essential for solar panel manufacturing has raised prices in local markets.
As innovators try to raise the efficiency of and use new materials to produce solar panels, the stage is set for the future of solar panel technologies. Alternatively, GAF’s Timberline Solar Shingles, which uses the same materials as asphalt shingles but makes it easy to install roofs, is one of the many innovations that may use other minerals and metals for solar energy production.
Science Alert has a great article about solar panel technologies and how it will affect future innovations. Learn more about it below.
There's a major catch to the world's need for solar panels, a new analysis suggests. The booming solar panel market – which is critical for a clean energy future – could demand close to half the world's aluminum by 2050. Thankfully, there are ways we can mitigate this.
Unlike more precious metals, such as the lithium and cobalt used in rechargeable batteries, the scarcity of aluminum is not the issue; in fact, it is the most abundant metal on Earth. But the production of pure aluminum which is used in solar panel frames comes with a huge energy cost that could translate to bulk emissions.
According to the International Energy Agency, solar panels are predicted to provide roughly a third of the world's total electricity demand by 2050. In 2019, just over 2 percent of global electricity came from solar – but solar is producing the cheapest electricity in history and renewable energy is being installed at a record rate.
"This represents an enormous manufacturing task that will create a demand for a variety of minerals," a team of photovoltaics researchers, led by Alison Lennon from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia, explains in their paper.
As the researchers outline, some solar roadmaps predict the world will need 85 times more solar energy than we currently produce to limit global warming to safe levels, although predictions vary and some projections might underestimate how much solar – and aluminum – we actually need.
This surging demand for solar could mean that by 2050, more than 40 percent of the world's current aluminum production will be required to mount and install solar panel arrays, the researchers found. That's over three-quarters of all the aluminum China produced in 2020.
"This escalation in demand does not include the use of aluminum in other clean energy technologies," such as wind turbines and electric vehicles, "which is also expected to increase, or its continued use for transportation and building infrastructure," Lennon and colleagues note.
What matters is how the aluminum is made. Making aluminum is an extractive and energy-intensive process, with most of the emissions coming from the electricity used to power its production.
Fortunately, aluminum is one of the most recycled and most recyclable materials around. In fact, nearly 75 percent of all the aluminum produced is still in use today. That's great news, because recycling aluminum uses a fraction of the energy required to make it anew, and just a smidgeon of the emissions. (Continue reading here to learn more)
