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Nature Energy (2025)
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Solar photovoltaics (PV) is entering a new era of multi-terawatt deployment, with 2 TW already in service and more than 75 TW predicted in many scenarios by 2050. This next era has been enabled by over five decades of cumulative advances in PV module cost reduction, performance and reliability. The current scale of deployment also introduces new needs, opportunities and challenges. In this Perspective we frame a path forwards based on learning, broadly defined as a combination of expansion of knowledge and advances through research and development, experience and collaboration. We discuss historical topics where learning has driven PV deployment until now, and emerging areas that are required to sustain high levels of future deployment. We expect progress to continue in terms of module price, performance and reliability, driven by advances in PV cell and module design, the emergence of tandem devices and increased focus on extending module lifetimes. Large-scale deployment also means large-scale sustainability and responsibility. We therefore posit that additional metrics, such as the impact on global CO2 emissions, resource consumption and design for reuse and recycling, will become increasingly important to the PV industry and provide opportunities for further learning.
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This Perspective was informed by the 4th Terawatt Workshop that was convened in Pacific Grove, California, USA on 6–8 June 2024. This work was authored in part by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory for the US Department of Energy (DOE) under contract no. DE-AC36-08GO28308. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the US Government. The US Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this work, or allow others to do so, for US Government purposes. The views expressed are also based on the current information available to the authors and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official or policy position of the European Commission.
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO, USA
Kirstin Alberi, Teresa Barnes, Joe Berry, Nancy M. Haegel, Samantha B. Reese, Ingrid Repins & Emily Warren
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
Kirstin Alberi & Joe Berry
IMD-3: Photovoltaics, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich, Germany
I. Marius Peters
Yangtze Institute for Solar Technology, Jiangyin, China
Pierre Verlinden
Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Freiburg, Germany
Simon Philipps, Martin Hermle, Ralf Preu, Christian Reichel & Andreas W. Bett
AGC Inc., Tokyo, Japan
Akio Koike & Naoya Kobayashi
University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
Joe Berry
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
Mariana Bertoni, Christiana Honsberg & Richard R. King
School of Energy Systems, LUT University, Lappeenranta, Finland
Christian Breyer
Sandia National Laboratory, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Laurie Burnham
Oxford Photovoltaics Ltd, Yarnton, UK
Chris Case
Trina Solar, State Key Laboratory of PV Science and Technology, Changzhou, China
Yifeng Chen
Physical Sciences and Engineering Division, KAUST Solar Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Stefaan De Wolf
School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Renate Egan & Jessica Yajie Jiang
AMFutureTech, Schwaikheim, Germany
Armin Froitzheim
VON ARDENNE GmbH, Dresden, Germany
Sebastian Gatz
First Solar, Inc., Perrysburg, OH, USA
Markus Gloeckler & Bill Huber
Department of Physics, University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany
Jan Christoph Goldschmidt
imo-imomec, Hasselt University, Hasselt, Belgium
Ivan Gordon
Imec, Genk, Belgium
Ivan Gordon
Energyville, Genk, Belgium
Ivan Gordon
Swiss RE, Singapore, Singapore
Edward Hsi
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tokyo, Japan
Shogo Ishizuka, Michio Kondo, Takashi Oozeki & Keiichiro Sakurai
European Commission, Joint Research Center, Ispra, Italy
Arnulf Jäger-Waldau
Swift Solar, San Carlos, CA, USA
Joel Jean
NSG Group, Niigata, Japan
Shannon Jurca
RTS Corporation, Tokyo, Japan
Izumi Kaizuka
Mizuho Research & Technology Ltd, Tokyo, Japan
Keiichi Komoto
Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
Michio Kondo
Renaissance Solar and Electronic Materials (RSOLEC), Chennai, India
Milind Kulkarni
University of California, Merced, Merced, CA, USA
Sarah Kurtz
School of Engineering, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Daniel Macdonald
Hanwha Qcells, Irvine, CA, USA
Danielle Merfeld
JERA Americas Inc., Houston, TX, USA
Shigeru Niki
Fraunhofer Center for Silicon Photovoltaics CSP, Halle, Germany
Andreas Obst
Institute of Microstructure Technology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany
Ulrich W. Paetzold
Light Technology Institute, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
Ulrich W. Paetzold
NexWafe GmbH, Freiburg, Germany
Jonathan Pickering & Davor Sutija
Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS), National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore, Singapore
Thomas Reindl
OFGEN, Nairobi, Kenya
Geoffrey Ronoh
Maxeon Solar Technologies, San Jose, CA, USA
Doug Rose
Competence Centre Photovoltaics Berlin (PVcomB), Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie, Berlin, Germany
Rutger Schlatmann
ICube laboratory, CNRS and Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France
Abdelilah Slaoui
Sinton Instruments, Boulder, CO, USA
Ron Sinton
Corning Inc., Corning, NY, USA
Kamal Soni
Clean Energy Institute, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Billy J. Stanbery
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Marko Topič
Tokyo University of Science, Tokyo, Japan
Yuzuru Ueda
National Center for Photovoltaic Research and Education, Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India
Juzer Vasi
bifa Umweltinstitut GmbH, Augsburg, Germany
Karsten Wambach
University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
Eicke Weber
Toyota Technical Institute, Nagoya, Japan
Masafumi Yamaguchi
Physics Institute, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
Andreas W. Bett
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Correspondence to Kirstin Alberi.
We declare employment-based competing interests for the following: A.K. is the President of AGC Business Development Americas; AGC is a glass, materials and chemical manufacturer. C.C. is the Chief Scientist at Oxford PV, a perovskite PV solar technology company. Y.C. is Vice President of Technology for Trina Solar, a PV and energy company. A.F. is the Chief Technology Officer of SOLARWATT, a full-service provider of integrated solar systems. S.G. is Vice President of Renewable Energies and Strategic Partnerships for VON ARDENNE GmbH, a company that manufactures vacuum coating systems and processes for industrial applications. M.G. is the Chief Technology Officer at First Solar, a producer of thin-film PV systems. E.H. is a senior consultant at Swiss RE, a commercial insurance provider. B.H. is the Head of Advanced Research at First Solar. J.J. is CEO and co-founder of Swift Solar, a US company focused on perovskite tandem solar technology. S.J. is R&D manager of the North American Thin Film Technology Team at NSG Group, a manufacturer of glass and glazing products. I.K. is Director and Principal Analyst at RTS Corporation, which is a PV industry and marketing consulting company. M. Kulkarni is Chairman and CEO of Renaissance Solar and Electronic Materials, a solar crystal growth and wafer manufacturing company. D. Merfeld is the Global Chief Technology Officer for Hanwha Qcells, a company focused on energy solutions from solar cells to power plants. N.K. is an employee of the Sustainable Management Initiatives Group at AGC. S.N. is with JERA Americas, an energy infrastructure company focused on low-carbon systems. J.P. is Vice President of Business Development at NexWafe, a company focused on next-generation PV wafer production. G.R. is co-founder and technical director at OFGEN, a distributed renewable energy company in Africa. D.R. is VP Technology Strategy of Maxeon Solar Technologies, a business focused on high-efficiency solar panels. R. Sinton is President and Senior Scientist of Sinton Instruments with an equity stake. Sinton Instruments manufactures test and measurement equipment for R&D and manufacturing in the PV industry. K. Soni is the Technology Assessment Director, Exploratory Markets and Technologies at Corning, Inc., which is a materials and manufacturing company focused on glass and ceramics. D.S. is the CEO of NexWafe. K.W. was formerly a Project Manager at bifa Umweltinstitut GmbH, which is an environmental research, development and consulting institute.
Nature Energy thanks Martin Green and Eric O’Shaughnessy for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
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Alberi, K., Peters, I.M., Verlinden, P. et al. Historical and future learning for the new era of multi-terawatt photovoltaics. Nat Energy (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-025-01929-z
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