Researchers from Kent Business School set out to examine to what extent the rising demand for solar panels as part of a push to use renewable energy sources is responsible for the rising cost of silver.
Researchers from Kent Business School set out to examine to what extent the rising demand for solar panels as part of a push to use renewable energy sources is responsible for the rising cost of silver.
Silver is a core element for the manufacture of solar panels, as it has the highest electrical and thermal conductivity of all metals. As such it is heavily used in solar panels, with around 20g per panel which equates to around 6.1% of the total cost of the price of building each unit.
In their analysis the researchers used data from quarterly silver prices measured from the London Bullion Market, installed solar energy capacity and solar gross electricity production between 1990 and 2016 to map correlations in demand and costs.
Read more at University of Kent
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