Yes, yes, you know who was on top of the importance of this story. Weeks ago.
From Bloomberg, June 14:
Averting climate change could turn on whether the industry can become less dependent on Xinjiang and still keep up supply of a vital raw material.
One of the longest-running deflationary trends is grinding to a halt. The consequences could have profound effects on the global ability to avert climate change.
The slumping cost of semiconductor chips since the 1950s transformed our world, turning computers from a costly piece of industrial plant to an ubiquitous presence in our smartphones, watches, cars and refrigerators. Something similar has happened over the past decade to that other critical semiconductor,
Panel modules that cost $1,870 per kilowatt in 2010 were changing hands for $163 per kW last year, turning photovoltaic, or PV, power from an expensive curiosity into a technology that’s remaking the energy system.
For two-thirds of the global population, solar along with wind represent the cheapest way to deliver new electricity supplies, according to BloombergNEF. Nearly 60% of the power generation installed over the five years through 2025 will be solar, the International Energy Agency said last year.
Sunny Side Up
Though prices are still a fraction of what they were 10 years ago, the increase in costs for solar modules this quarter is the biggest in more than a decade
That trend has come juddering to a halt in recent months. The price of panel modules is up nearly 15% so far this quarter. If that continues, it would represent only the seventh quarter out of the past 45 when prices have failed to decline.
An industry whose growth model is predicated on continually falling costs is having to cope with its first bout of inflation.
Raw materials are to blame. Prices for polysilicon, the shiny, semi-metallic substance from which both solar panels and computer chips are made, have been surging as stepped-up plans for renewable installations crash into the supply chain problems of a global economy awakening from Covid-19. At $29.41 a kilogram, PV-grade polysilicon is now as expensive as it’s been since 2012, and costs nearly three times its $10.57/kilogram price at the end of last year.
That’s concerning. Persistent prices as high as $450/kg for polysilicon during the 2000s, before a wave of new Chinese manufacturers entered the market and undercut the incumbents, are one reason that prospects of competitive solar power seemed so dim at the time.
Should the same pattern repeat itself, predictions about a future of rock-bottom PV prices driving rapid decarbonization of the power system may have to be revisited.
Stay Loose
A tight polysilicon market in 2021 is likely to ease in the coming few years as new supply comes on stream.....
....MUCH MORE
See yesterday's ""Dem Support for Chinese Forced Labor Sanctions Imperils Biden’s Solar Energy Agenda" for some of her links.
