Figure 3: Experience curves for cost and environmental footprint of mono- and polycrystalline PV modules and systems. | Nature Communications

Figure 3: Experience curves for cost and environmental footprint of mono- and polycrystalline PV modules and systems.

From: Re-assessment of net energy production and greenhouse gas emissions avoidance after 40 years of photovoltaics development

Figure 3

(a) Experience curve for average module selling price. Magenta triangles: data from26; Orange squares: data from16, Green pentagons: data from25; Blue hexagons: data from34,35. (b–e) Experience curves for cumulative energy demand and GHG emissions from production of mono- and polycrystalline silicon based PV systems. The purple circles indicate the predicted cost, based on forecasted values of cumulative installed PV capacity for the year 2040. These values were obtained by adjusting the starting points of the 2014 IEA ‘World Energy Outlook’52 long term scenarios to the more recent ‘Global Market Outlook for Photovoltaics 2015–2019’ short-term scenarios1. (a–e) The experience curves are indicated by the dashed black lines. The shaded areas show a 95% confidence interval for the fitted models. (d,e) The graphs for GHG emission show data harmonised for lifetime and annual yield and degradation (right) as described in the Methods section.

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