A Commodity Today, Incompatible Tomorrow: The Paradox of PV?

Since the year 2000, the PV industry has seen a thousand-fold increase in deployments to over 2 TW by 2024, while module prices have dropped more than 98%. During this time, the perception has grown of PV modules as commodities. However, when PV modules have to be replaced beyond available spares, owners are confronted with the challenge that modules compatible with the existing modules and mounting systems are not available at scale. When PV modules must be sourced on the market, the second paradox of PV emerges: module warranties have lengthened and strengthened, while variations in the bill of materials have increased, yet testing durations and scopes have not scaled accordingly. The findings underscore the urgent need for industry-wide standardisation, increased transparency and trust-but-verify mentality, extended qualification protocols, and strategies to mitigate the operational and economic risks associated with PV module obsolescence.