| dc.description.abstract | To reach the climate goals that were set in the Paris Agreement, i.e. keeping global temperature increase below 2 ⁰C, significant renewable electricity generation capacity has to be installed. Wind turbines and solar PV are expected to supply a major share of the future energy demand. These technologies however require certain material resources that are not infinitely available. For the different solar PV technologies these material resource are tellurium, indium and silver. For wind turbines the most important material resources are neodymium and dysprosium. To determine whether problem will occur in the supply of those material resources, their future demand from all applications should be mapped. The current research maps the part of the demand that comes from the wind turbine and solar PV industries. In doing so, it takes into account three points of improvement to current research. Firstly, demand for multiple material resources in wind turbines and solar PV is analysed on basis of the same projections for development of the whole energy system. Secondly, distinctions are made between different types of wind turbine and solar PV technologies. Thirdly, to serve as an example, demand from a technology outside the electricity generation industry is addressed.
Future demand is determined on basis of the market share of technologies, the material intensity of the material resources within the researched technologies and the future installed capacities. The market share and material intensity are determined on the basis of an elaborate review of existing literature. Scenarios were created to take into account the different visions on future developments. The future installed capacity is taken from data generated by the IMAGE model. This model determined the best installation pathway to obtain an energy system by 2050 that results in meeting the climate targets. On the basis of these three variables, projections for the future yearly demand of tellurium, indium, silver, neodymium and dysprosium were made.
The highest projected cumulative demand for indium by 2050 (4.7 ktonne) is only 42% of the lowest estimates for indium reserves. The other material resources show even lower shares for their cumulative demand in estimated reserves. For indium, silver, neodymium and dysprosium their highest yearly demands are no more than 40% of current production levels. Yearly demand for tellurium from solar PV (already responsible for 40% of tellurium demand) could possibly exceed current yearly production (estimated between 0.4 and 0.7 ktonne/year). This would however only be the case in the most tellurium intensive scenario, with a projected demand of 0.6 ktonne. Looking only at demand from renewable electricity generation technologies thus does not seem to give reason for great concern about availability of material resources.
Adding indium demand from the TV industry however raises indium demand to 10 ktonne, close to the lowest estimates for current reserves of 11 ktonne, indicating the importance of including demand from other industries. Furthermore, comparison of the results with results from previous research that did not take technological differences and market shares of different technologies into account shows big differences in material resources demand, indicating the importance of addressing those factors. Additionally, the moment of installation (i.e. the installation path) proves to have a great influence on the material resource demand. Changing the installation pathway of IMAGE to a linear installation path results in a large shift in demand between the different material resources under investigation.
The current research addresses a part of the demand side. Further research on the rest of the demand side and the supply (and source) of material resources is needed before solid conclusions on whether problem in the supply of the material resources under investigation will occur can be drawn. | |
