PV production must be accelerated now

‘The world needs gigawatts not megawatts’

That is the title of an article in Earthtoys, an e-magazine on energy resources. The article, 'What are Photovoltaics?', gives a clear insight into the major challenges facing the Photovoltaic (PV) industry.

The current production cost of PV systems is still far too high to make it competitive with traditional power production technologies. Nevertheless, PV systems represent one of the fastest growing industries worldwide and demand largely exceeds supply.

According to Earthtoys, that is not a contradiction since the industry is only at the beginning of a long-term growth curve. Because of their unique advantages, PV systems have such a large growth potential that current demand is only a fraction of what it could be. Another reason for the high demand — not mentioned by Earthtoys — is the financial support programmes for PV systems that exist in many countries.

Yet for PV systems to play a significant role in worldwide electricity production, it will need to dramatically reduce production cost and increase production capacity. In order to represent just 1% of the worldwide electricity production by 2010, the PV systems industry needs to grow 25 times larger. To represent 5% by that time, it needs to grow 125 times larger. This is clearly unrealistic growth.

The massive growth potential of PV systems is both a huge business opportunity and a simple necessity. Rapid development of PV systems technology is essential given the current peak oil production and global warming limitations, fossil fuels may not be able to address future worldwide electricity demand.