Fossil Fuel Prices and Solar Energy

Fossil fuel prices have been increasing in recent months. Some cities in California are seeing record gasoline prices at the pump and Texas gasoline prices have surged to levels not seen in many years. Market analysts have pointed to fossil fuel price increase as a result of higher demand and short-term supply problems, but how does this affect solar energy?

A surge in fossil fuel prices has been seen as a benefit to renewable energy, but maybe the answer is not so simple. All products, including wind turbines and traditional solar PV modules, require energy to fabricate, transport and install. Most of today’s solar PV is manufactured using a lot of energy supplied from the burning of coal. Extreme weather has been blamed for flooding dozens of mines in Shanxi province, leading to coal shortages, which has led to a surge in prices of traditional PV panels in China, that makes the majority of the global supply today.  Consequently, more than half of large utility-scale solar PV projects worldwide for 2022 could be at risk due to the price increases. 

The problem is that today’s traditional solar PV still consumes too many materials and energy derived from fossil-fuels.

PI Energy’s technology is designed to utilize far less materials with a solar cell that is about 1/40 the thickness of traditional PV. Also, a far thinner solar cells is far lighter and easier to transport, as well as requiring less energy to install. With our technology, the next generation of solar PV will take far less energy and materials to fabricate.