Cui Can, Lonergan Katherine Emma, Sansavini Giovanni
Institute of Energy and Process Engineering, ETH Zurich, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland.
Reliability and Risk Engineering, ETH Zurich, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland.
Nat Commun. 2025 Jul 22;16(1):6742. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-61979-5.
Tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030 requires increasing technology production capacity, including solar photovoltaics (PV). Current supply chains rely heavily on Chinese production; however, this situation is not aligned with regions aiming to increase self-sufficiency, decrease supply chain emissions, and increase local job opportunities. Here, we apply a supply chain optimization model to perform scenario analysis of the PV supply chain development through 2021-2030 considering various European economic and job creation goals. Irrespective of regional goals, we find that China is poised to remain a globally dominant supplier through 2030, especially in terms of lower-value PV components, given that future demand requires increasing global production capacity by a factor of at least 1.5. We find that some regional supply chain goals can be co-beneficial, for example in terms of joint job gains and increased regional self-sufficiency. However, pursuing highly isolationist policies can introduce cost-significant inefficiencies. Our results highlight that an open trade policy is key to minimizing costs, even when considering security and environmental supply chain objectives.
到2030年将可再生能源产能提高两倍，需要提高技术生产能力，包括太阳能光伏（PV）。目前的供应链严重依赖中国的生产；然而，这种情况与那些旨在提高自给自足能力、减少供应链排放以及增加当地就业机会的地区并不相符。在此，我们应用一个供应链优化模型，对2021年至2030年期间光伏供应链发展进行情景分析，同时考虑各种欧洲经济和创造就业目标。不管地区目标如何，我们发现到2030年中国仍将是全球主要供应商，特别是在低价值光伏组件方面，因为未来需求要求全球生产能力至少提高1.5倍。我们发现一些地区供应链目标可以带来共同利益，例如在共同创造就业机会和提高地区自给自足能力方面。然而，推行高度孤立主义政策可能会导致成本显著增加的低效率。我们的结果表明，即使在考虑供应链安全和环境目标时，开放贸易政策也是将成本降至最低的关键。
