Sara Zeinal Zadeh
University of Queensland, Australia
Title: Feasibility of Solar Energy Scenarios: A critical review of solar energy deployment constraints
Biography
Biography: Sara Zeinal Zadeh
Abstract
Scientific and social consensus about the risks of climate change is growing around the world and best evidenced by the recent commitments pledged under the Paris Climate protocol and subsequent ratification by 142 of the 197 participating countries, representing 95% of global emissions. In addition there are several global decarbonisation scenarios which outline pathways and future energy mixes with the specific objective of holding the global average temperature to less than 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. Typically these scenarios project terawatts of solar energy deployment over the next few decades. It has been highlighted that this rapid switch may cause limitations in the required natural resources and several life cycle assessments (LCA) have been carried out with a wide range of assumptions and methods to identify these critical materials. However, almost all these studies have discussed constraints around a single solar technology, typically PV and often in isolation to the broader industries that utilise the same materials. Here we consider the role of the solar sector in the International Energy Agency’s 2 Degree Scenario (IEA2DS) considering both PV and concentrated solar thermal (CST). The results show that installation of 0.7TW CST along with 3.5TW PV may not cause additional material constraints although to avoid major uncertainties around tellurium, silver and indium the share of CST should be increased.