On May 25th, international oil prices plummeted, while precious metals surged. Spot gold broke through $4570/ounce, rising over 1% intraday. Spot silver touched $78/ounce, rising over 4%.
Since 2026, the silver market has experienced a rollercoaster ride: after surging to historical highs at the beginning of the year, it has sharply corrected and is currently maintaining a wide range of high-level fluctuations.
As the largest industrial demand sector for silver, photovoltaics is seeing increased silver consumption per unit due to rising penetration rates of high-efficiency cells (TOPCon/HJT/BC). The soaring silver price has become a core pressure on the cost of solar panels.
Silver prices are under pressure due to high-level fluctuations.
At the beginning of the year, silver continued its upward trend from 2025, strongly rising due to the triple positive factors of expectations of a Fed rate cut, Middle East geopolitical conflicts, and the essential demand for photovoltaics.
In late January, London silver broke through $100/ounce, reaching a nominal historical high of $121/ounce on February 28th. Domestically, the main Shanghai silver futures contract surged in tandem, reaching over 22,000 yuan/kg in mid-April, a quarterly increase of over 60%.
In late May, silver prices entered a trading range of $70-85/ounce (London silver) and 17,000-20,000 yuan/kg (Shanghai silver). Institutions predict a "mild decline with wide fluctuations" in the second half of the year: on the one hand, the peak season for global photovoltaic installations in Q3-Q4 will support industrial demand, and a silver supply-demand gap will persist (approximately 60 million ounces in 2026); on the other hand, the accelerated implementation of "de-silvering" technologies, high prices suppressing jewelry demand, coupled with uncertainty surrounding Federal Reserve policies, have weakened silver price rebounds, and prices may fall back to around $70/ounce by the end of the year.
N-type penetration drives up unit silver consumption; photovoltaics becomes the largest industrial demand for silver.
Photovoltaics has become the largest industrial demand sector for silver. In 2025, photovoltaic silver consumption accounted for 35% of global industrial silver consumption. Although the "de-silvering" trend accelerated in 2026, the expansion of installed capacity still drove demand to remain high.
Comparing the silver consumption of mainstream battery technologies, the penetration rate of N-type high-efficiency batteries, represented by TOPCon/HJT, is rapidly increasing, reaching 70% by the end of 2026, directly driving up the unit silver consumption: Previously, PERC had a silver consumption of 8.5-9.5 mg/W per watt, with a single cell consuming approximately 70 mg of silver; the technology was mature and had the lowest silver consumption.
Specifically, TOPCon (N-type, currently the mainstream high-efficiency battery): using a double-sided silver paste process, has a silver consumption of 10-13 mg/W per watt, with a single cell consuming approximately 80 mg of silver, 30%-40% higher than PERC.
HJT (N-type, heterojunction): Low-temperature silver paste, silver consumption per watt 12-15 mg/W, approximately 150 mg/W per cell, twice that of PERC; using OBB technology can reduce it to 8-10 mg/W.
XBC (N-type, back contact): Silver consumption per watt 15-18 mg/W, currently the route with the highest silver consumption.
From the demand side, global new photovoltaic installations in 2025 reached 753 GW, consuming approximately 7,560 tons of silver, a year-on-year increase of 23%, accounting for 19% of global silver demand. 2026 will see a balance between "installed capacity expansion + decreased silver consumption per watt".
In terms of installed capacity, global new installations in 2026 are expected to exceed 600 GW, with China, Europe, and Southeast Asia as the core growth areas.
Silver consumption per GW: With the promotion of "de-silvering" technologies (silver-plated copper, electroplated copper), silver consumption per GW will decrease from 10 tons in 2025 to 6-8 tons.
In terms of total demand, global silver consumption for photovoltaics is projected to reach approximately 6,500 tons in 2026, a year-on-year decrease of 10%, marking the first negative growth in recent years. However, it remains the largest industrial demand sector for silver.
The surge in silver prices has made silver the biggest cost variable for photovoltaic modules: from August to October 2025, silver's share of module costs rose from 12% to 17%; after silver prices hit a record high in December, this proportion approached 18%. For N-type cells, silver paste accounts for more than 50% of non-silicon costs, and for TOPCon cells, silver paste accounts for 62%, directly squeezing companies' profit margins.
Faced with the pressure of high silver prices, the domestic photovoltaic industry has established a comprehensive cost reduction and breakthrough system. In the short term, leading companies such as LONGi and Tongwei are using financial tools such as futures hedging, long-term fixed-price procurement, and dynamic inventory management to hedge against silver price fluctuations and stabilize production costs. In the medium term, the industry will fully adopt silver-clad copper technology, combined with process optimizations such as multi-busbar and busbarless designs, significantly reducing silver consumption per watt of cells and achieving large-scale cost reduction.
