Economic and Environmental Evaluation of Monocrystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Power Generation Systems

Abstract

Towards widespread use of solar power generation system, the intrinsic cost reduction should be essential in order to compete against conventional power generation systems. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the priority of technology development items and directions from the stand point of the economic and environmental aspects based on scientific basis. This paper reveals cost structure of monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic power generation systems in three different technology scenarios. In this analysis, we use economic and environmental evaluation methodology called “Platform of low carbon technologies for process design and evaluation of manufacturing cost and CO₂ emissions” which has been developed by Center for Low Carbon Society Strategy (LCS). As a result, the current installation cost of a monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic power generation system is 176 yen/W (18 yen/kWh) and CO₂ emissions is 1200 g-CO₂/ W (60 g-CO₂/kWh). Two significant technology development items are indicated by this research. One is the reduction of raw material consumption and the other is the improvement of module efficiency. The manufacturing cost can fall to 105 yen/W (11 yen/kWh) in a scenario(mainly by reducing the wafer thickness 100um and improving module efficiency 20%) and 70 yen/W (7 yen/kWh) in other scenario(mainly by reducing the wafer thickness to 50 μm or less and improving module efficiency up to 23%).