The application of solar cells has gone from the military field and aerospace field to industry, commerce, agriculture, communications, household appliances and public facilities, which can be used in remote areas, mountains, deserts, islands and rural areas to save expensive transmission lines. But at this stage, it is still expensive, costing tens of thousands of dollars to make a 1kW, so large-scale use is still economically constrained.

The photovoltaic cells on the market are mainly made of monocrystalline silicon. Because of the high energy consumption of monocrystalline silicon cell production, some experts believe that the energy consumption of existing monocrystalline silicon cell production is higher than that of solar energy captured in its life cycle, which is of no value. The most optimistic estimate is that it will take a decade or so to generate more solar energy using monocrystalline silicon than it consumes in production. Monocrystalline silicon is obtained from quartz sand after reduction and melting. The production process energy consumption is large, produces many poisonous and harmful substances, the environment pollution is serious. Foreign countries are shifting production to China. There are many production lines of monocrystalline silicon and monocrystalline silicon in China.

However, we do not know the production technology of photovoltaic cells. Although the production technology of monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic cell is mature, it is still developing, and various other photovoltaic cell technologies are also emerging. The cost and efficiency of photovoltaic cells are far from being truly marketable, and the photovoltaic cell market is mainly subsidized by governments. In the European market, the subsidy for photovoltaic power generation is more than 1 yuan per kilowatt hour. In the future, the efficiency and production cost of photovoltaic cells must be constantly improved to make them widely used. In this process, production technology and products will be updated continuously. Its replacement cycle is short, only 3-5 years. Due to the rapid technological update, domestic enterprises, if they do not master the technology and update the technology in a timely manner, will be eliminated soon, and will probably fail to recover the investment.

But, in the long run, following the development of the solar cell manufacturing technology, and new light - the invention of the electric switching device, for the protection of the environment and the huge demand for renewable clean energy, solar cells will continue to be the method of using solar radiation is feasible, but for human use of solar energy on a large scale open up broad prospects in the future.