https://doi.org/10.1051/epjpv/2023034
Mini-review
Critical materials and PV cells interconnection
1
Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CEA, Liten, INES, ITE INES.2S, 73375 Le Bourget du Lac, France
2
Institut des Nanotechnologies de Lyon, UMR 5270, Université de Lyon, France
* e-mail: antoine.perelman@cea.fr
Received:
3
March
2023
Accepted:
8
December
2023
Published online: 9 February 2024
Assessment of the critical nature of a material for an application is a relevant notion to anticipate supply issues for an application and a territory. To establish a list of the critical materials, we have developed an approach taking into account geological scarcity, deployment logistics and societal aspects. This article aims to apply this framework to photovoltaic (PV) module interconnection. We draw the conclusion that even if concerns of critical materials are focused on Silver (Ag) scarcity (on metallization part), interconnection materials such as Tin (Sn) and Bismuth (Bi) are even more critical, mainly due to their mostly dispersive uses. This leads us to a standard module conception analysis and emphasizes the interest of improving a more modularized PV module architecture in order to improve high value recycling. An example of such a conception is given with NICE concept. Another example offering a way to optimize metallization conception toward a less consuming pattern is also described.
Key words: Critical material / photovoltaic module / architecture
© A. Perelman et al., Published by EDP Sciences, 2024
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
