l'Actualité du Solaire

The European Commission has commissioned a study on the raw material requirements to achieve the energy transition with two key dates, 2030 and 2050. The answer is clear:

The deployment of solar energy in the EU could be jeopardised by a shortage of raw materials.such as germanium, tellurium, gallium, indium, selenium, silicon and glass, and by the need to import the majority of raw materials.

To develop their scenarios, the researchers compiled the objectives of the various states, assessed the production capacities required, examined the different levels of demand in the rest of the world, and the raw material requirements that this implies. They distributed these needs according to the different RE sectors and raw materials. They tried to predict what technological improvements would reduce the need for raw materials.

The result was three scenarios for the demand for clean energy raw materials in the European Union:

1°) The most optimistic outlook for solar would imply a net decrease in the demand for raw materials, as technological advances would offset more widespread deployment.

2°) The average demand scenario foresees an increase in the demand for materials of between three and eight times.

3°) The high demand scenario paints a different picture. In the latter model, demand for silver would quadruple and demand for silicon by a factor of 12 by 2050. More worrying would be the foreseeable 40-fold increase in demand for cadmium, gallium, indium, selenium and tellurium. Demand for germanium would exceed all measures, with an increase of 86 times the volume imported in 2018.

Building materials such as concrete, steel and aluminium could increase eightfold by 2030 and 30fold by 2050 in the high demand scenario. The PV industry currently consumes 60.7 tonnes of concrete per megawatt of installed production capacity. Demand for steel was estimated at 67.9 T / MW in 2018; plastic 8.6 tonnes; glass 46.4 T / MW; aluminium 7.5 T / MW; and copper 4.6 tonnes per megawatt in 2018. For these materials, only minor reductions in requirements were projected by the authors of the report. In 2050, the study projects that demand for these materials could be 80%, 90% or 100% of 2018 levels, depending on the three demand scenarios.

Innovation could reduce the demand for materials. For example, between 2004 and 2018, the need for silicon to produce one watt of panel power was divided by four. This could be divided by a third or a half by 2028.

In a high-demand scenario, germanium, tellurium, gallium, selenium, silicon, glass and indium could be in short supply with some of these elements exceeding current world supply levels.

Thus, the EU's energy transition could be threatened by weaknesses in the supply chain,

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/23/the-raw-materials-needed-for-the-european-green-deal/

PV Magazine of April 23rd

Editor's note First of all, the Commission should be congratulated for trying to map out the needs and resources for raw materials before proposing a plan that might be unrealistic.

Only the results of the study leave readers perplexed: Either we are not able to have the raw materials to achieve the energy transition and avoid pushing in that direction, or we go ahead knowing that there will be a shortage and an interruption in the energy transition at some point in time. So the sooner we have installed RE generators, the more autonomous we will be, hoping that by then there will be major technological innovations that will make it possible to get rid of a certain number of materials that must be in short supply.

If we look back a few years ago, lithium batteries must have lacked this material because there were only two or three producing countries and the treatment of salars was extremely expensive. The problem was solved with new producing countries and a decrease in the need for lithium per battery. This will hold until the number of electric vehicles becomes widespread, which could then cause the shortage to reappear.