The world passed a PV milestone in 2022, reaching and quickly exceeding 1 TW of global installed PV capacity. Achieving global decarbonization goals for 2035 and 2050 will require continued expansion of PV manufacturing, as well as innovation in materials science and device and module design. Setting ambitious yet achievable targets for global PV deployment will help the industry and other stakeholders plan and act accordingly. Based on a recent international perspective piece (Science, April 7, 2023) and a review of innovation in PV device physics (Device,  July 31, 2023), this talk will review recent advances in PV and associated challenges in reaching multi-TW scale manufacturing and deployment, including materials supply, eco-design, and the role of device innovation at a critical time in the energy transition.

Nancy M. Haegel is a senior research advisor in the Materials, Chemical and Computational Sciences Directorate at NREL and Director of the National Center for Photovoltaics. Prior to her current role, she was the Center Director for Materials Science at NREL. Her research interests are in electronic materials and devices, with emphasis on transport characterization, high resistivity semiconductors and infrared imaging and detection. She has also led international efforts in promoting the role of PV in the future energy economy. Haegel joined NREL in 2014, after 25 years in academia, with the last ten at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey California where she was a Distinguished Professor in the Physics Department. She received her BS degree in Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science from the University of Notre Dame and a PhD in Materials Science from the University of California, Berkeley. Haegel is the author or co-author of ~ 160 publications, a Fellow of APS, and has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany. 

Department of Physics and Astronomy General Colloquia

Verlinden, Pierre & Young, David & Xiong, Gang & Reese, Matthew & Mansfield, Lorelle & Powalla, Michael & Paetel, Stefan & France, Ryan & Chiu, Philip & Haegel, Nancy. (2023). Photovoltaic device innovation for a solar future. Device. 1. 100013. 10.1016/j.device.2023.100013.

Haegel, Nancy & Verlinden, Pierre & Victoria, Marta & Altermatt, Pietro & Atwater, Harry & Barnes, Teresa & Case, Chris & De Wolf, Stefaan & Deline, Chris & Dharmrin, Marwan & Dimmler, Bernhard & Gloeckler, Markus & Goldschmidt, Jan Christoph & Hallam, Brett & Haussener, Sophia & Holder, Burkhard & Jaeger, Ulrich & Jäger-Waldau, Arnulf & Eu,. (2023). Photovoltaics at multi-terawatt scale: Waiting is not an option. Science 380(6640). 10.1126/science.adf6957.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Haegel, Nancy & Verlinden, Pierre & Victoria, Marta & Altermatt, Pietro & Atwater, Harry & Barnes, Teresa & Case, Chris & De Wolf, Stefaan & Deline, Chris & Dharmrin, Marwan & Dimmler, Bernhard & Gloeckler, Markus & Goldschmidt, Jan Christoph & Hallam, Brett & Haussener, Sophia & Holder, Burkhard & Jaeger, Ulrich & Jäger-Waldau, Arnulf & Eu,. (2023). Photovoltaics at multi-terawatt scale: Waiting is not an option. Science 380(6640). 10.1126/science.adf6957.

• (2024), "Photovoltaics at Multi-Terawatt Scale: Waiting is Not an Option," https://nanohub.org/resources/38727.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. photovoltaics (PV)
2. solar cells