Proposal Papers for Policy Making and Governmental Action toward Low Carbon Society

LCS-FY2018-PP-16

PV power systems (Vol. 5):
Cost Estimates for Crystal Silicon Solar Cells and Perovskite Solar Cells Using Quantitative Technology Scenarios

  • SDGs7
  • SDGs9
  • SDGs13
  • SDGs11
  • SDGs12
  • SDGs15

Summary

 The Center for Low Carbon Society Strategy (LCS) has been analyzing the manufacturing cost structure of various types of photovoltaic (PV) power systems. A methodology has been established to evaluate in detail of manufacturing costs based on estimated future technology levels.

 In this paper, we reevaluated PV technology and cost prospects in consideration of recent market expansion and technology development and have shown cost outlook and issues of technology development for the future. Using our quantitative technology evaluation method, we analyzed the current and future cost structures of crystal silicon solar cells, which are mainstream, and of perovskite solar cells which are recently attracting attention as high efficiency and inexpensive manufacturing technology. The result of this evaluation showed that the cost of silicon solar cells was expected to be reduced by half led by technology development such as lower raw material costs due to upsizing, thinner wafers and higher efficiency. Although manufacturing cost of perovskite solar modules is reduced to the almost same cost as silicon solar modules due to technological development for high efficiency and greater surface area, the power cost increases to 1.5 times due to its low efficiency compared to crystal silicon cells and low durability. Therefore, it is shown that improvement in durability is also important. Considering future technological development, it is important to comprehensively evaluate different solar cell technologies.

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