Norzinc Ltd. (NORZF)

[NYBob]

Photovoltaics boosts silver demand which is expected to soar to 24 MM troy ounces by 2016.

http://www.commodityonline.com/news/Silver-s-new-boost-comes-from-rising-solar-industry-18265-3-1.html

June 1, 2009
Silver’s new boost comes from rising solar industry
Commodity Online

VIRGINIA: At present solar industry may not be the largest consumer of silver, but trends are changing. The high prices of fossil fuels, their environmental impact due to carbon emissions is already leading to world-wide growth in investments in solar and alternative technologies for energy.

Photo-voltaics is the fastest growing application for silver in the past five years due to the above mentioned factors. A NanoMarket’s research suggests that the volume of silver used for photovoltaics will reach over 24 million troy ounces in 2016. The report titled “Silver Markets for Photovoltaics” pointed out that the market dynamics of the silver and PV market are changing. As thin-film and organic PV begin to take a larger share of the overall PV market the use of silver will shift from that of a simple coating used to fabricate the top electrodes in crystalline silicon PV to that of a key determinant in boosting efficiencies and materials performance. NanoMarkets believes that thin-film PV and organic PV both will account for 27 percent of silver used by PV in 2016.

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While the overall markets for silver are dominated mainly by its established, "conventional" uses, there are a number of emerging technologies that also use silver, and these rapidly growing technologies will account for a disproportionate amount of the growth in the silver market.

Key Findings:
-PV is the fastest growing application for silver; NanoMarkets' research suggests that the volume of silver used for photovoltaics will reach over 24 million troy ounces in 2016.

-NanoMarkets also believes that silver reflective coatings could prove of immense importance in getting organic PV (OPV) to performance levels that would make its satisfactory for its biggest area of opportunity; building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV).

-While PV silver will continue to be dominated by simple silver pastes, the need for higher performance will create demand for pastes manufactured from nanomaterials which have higher degrees of conductivity than regular pastes.
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-Another new opportunity can be found in transparent composite materials in which indium tin oxide (ITO) or conductive polymers are mixed with silver to create new materials for high performance top electrodes. These composites are being tried out first in OPV, but NanoMarkets believes that they will have applications throughout the industry.

The use of silver is, of course, partially linked to the price of silver. The price of silver has been fairly volatile over the past several years, ranging as high as $20 per ounce in mid-2008 and back down to about $10 per ounce in early 2009. Much of the recent decline in silver prices is due to the ongoing worldwide recession, which has reduced demand for most industrial silver, including for products made with silver inks. This volatility does introduce a level of uncertainty into the use of silver inks, but generally where an ink is the preferred form of a conductor, silver inks' benefits far outweigh the relative cost, even at high silver prices. Price is only one factor in the market for silver conductive inks, and such inks generally contribute only a relatively small portion of the cost of the products that use them., NanoMarkets report said. (Courtesy: PRNewswire)

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