Solar Energy Perspectives - IEA

Chapter 6: Solar photovoltaics
Another contributor to the decrease of BOS and installation-related costs is the increase in
efficiency at module level. More efficient modules imply lower costs for BOS equipment,
installation and land use.
Figure 6.5 PV technology status and prospects
40%
30%
20%
10%
Efficiency rates of industrially manufactured module/product
I – Crystalline silicon technologies:
single crystalline, multi-crystalline, ribbon
III – Emerging technologies
and novel concepts
IV – Concentrating photovoltaics
Quantum wells, up-down converters, intermediate
band gaps, plasmonics, thermo-photovoltaics, etc
Advanced inorganic thin-film technologies
II – Thin-film technologies:
cadmium-telluride, copper-indium/gallium,-diselenide/disulphide and related II-VI compounds, thin-film silicon
Organic solar cells
0
Source: IEA PVPS.
2008
2020 2030
Key point
The future of PV is likely to be more diverse and more efficient.
Photovoltaic technologies can be applied in a very diverse range of applications, including
small-scale residential systems, mid-scale commercial systems, large-scale utility systems and
off-grid applications of varying sizes. They have different prices: the current and target system
costs for the residential, commercial and utility sectors, updated from IEA, 2010c on the basis
of recent information from the most mature market, Germany, are shown in Table 6.1,
Table 6.2 and Table 6.3. In slightly more than one year, given actual cost reductions,
deployment and trends, estimates for 2020 in particular have been significantly reduced. On
top of the target costs (USD/kW) for typical turn-key system the tables indicate three different
electricity generation costs (USD/MWh) depending on the electric output per kW capacity,
which reflects different irradiance levels.
Current system prices may be significantly higher in less mature markets; however, it is
reasonable to base target costs for the future on German data, as other markets will mature
as they develop and prices would accordingly decline. These estimates are scenariodependent,
based on learning curves and deployment along the ETP 2010 Hi-Ren Scenario.
One may also question the assessment of future cost reductions on the basis of past learning
progress. In many industries it has been observed that learning rates of mature technologies
ultimately flattened as a result of a fully optimised product reaching an ultimate floor cost.
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