Price volatility in PV-critical material markets: Perspectives for solar firms, consumers, and policy makers

Price volatility in byproduct material markets, such as tellurium and indium, create economic uncertainty for technologies that use them, e.g. CdTe and CIGS solar PV. This uncertainty is of interest to multiple stakeholders since it can affect, for example, firm profitability and consumer rate of return on investment; however, this issue has not yet been addressed in the literature. The present work seeks to fill this gap by probing sensitivity of key decision metrics, namely profit margin for firms and payback time for consumers, to changes in input material price on par with recently observed volatility. The results of the previous two analyses are used to provide a broad perspective on potential insights for policy makers looking to most effectively promote clean energy adoption.