The effect of critical material prices on the competitiveness of clean energy technologies
The effect of critical material prices on the competitiveness of clean energy technologies
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DOI：
10.1007/s40243-019-0146-z
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发表时间：
2019-06-01
影响因子：
4.5
通讯作者：
Babbitt, Callie
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Leader, Alexandra;Gaustad, Gabrielle;Babbitt, Callie
清洁能源技术被广泛认为是可持续未来解决方案的一部分。不幸的是，这些技术往往依赖于被认为是关键的材料，因为它们对技术的重要性和供应中断的可能性，这往往导致剧烈和意想不到的价格飙升。由于许多清洁能源技术在经济上仍难以与现有技术竞争，因此尚不确定这种材料价格变化是否会对清洁能源技术的总体成本产生重大的经济影响。在本文中，我们首先估计了三个清洁能源技术案例研究的关键材料的材料强度：燃料电池电动汽车（fcev）中的质子交换膜（PEM）燃料电池，直接驱动风力涡轮机中的钕铁硼（NdFeB）永磁体，以及电池电动汽车（bev）中的锂离子电池。利用这些数据以及材料价格信息，我们分析了潜在材料价格飙升情景下的技术层面成本。通过对每项技术相对于现有能源系统具有经济竞争力的目标成本进行基准测试，我们评估了价格飙升对市场竞争力的影响。对于这三个案例研究，如果最近的历史价格事件在当前材料强度下再次发生，技术成本可能会增加13%至41%。通过分析材料价格变化对技术水平成本的经济影响，我们论证了利益相关者推动各种降低供应风险措施的必要性，本文也对这些措施进行了总结。
Clean energy technologies are widely recognized as a part of the solution for a sustainable future. Unfortunately, these technologies often rely on materials that are considered critical because of their importance to the technology and their potential for supply disruptions, which often lead to drastic and unexpected price spikes. With many clean energy technologies still struggling to compete economically with incumbent technologies, it is uncertain if such material price changes could have a significant economic impact on overall clean energy technology costs. In this paper, we first estimate material intensity of critical materials for three case study clean energy technologies: proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells in fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) permanent magnets in direct drive wind turbines, and Li-ion batteries in battery electric vehicles (BEVs). Using these data, as well as material price information, we analyze technology-level costs under potential material price spike scenarios. By benchmarking against target costs at which each technology is expected to become economically competitive relative to incumbent energy systems, we evaluate the impact of price spikes on marketplace competitiveness. For the three case studies, technological costs could increase by between 13 and 41% if recent historical price events were to recur at current material intensities. By analyzing the economic impact of material price changes on technology-level costs, we demonstrate the need for stakeholders to push for various supply risk reduction measures, which are also summarized in this paper.