Silver's greatest value to industrial use:

Silver being a thing of beauty as well , it finds great use in both jewelry and investment bars and coins, which together represented 28% of silver consumption in the year 2012. But for the sake of focus in this special report on silver use – and its outlook – i want to give careful attention to certain parts of the industrial sector. Silver use may struggle to keep up its rapid growth in recent years, as new uses are not grown at a faster pace across the globe.

 

The photovoltaic industry. where, silver helps to convert sunlight into electricity. In 2008 alone the solar industry came on like gangbusters, growing its silver use by 155%.

 

Up until 2010 the growth in the PV industry's silver remained voracious because subsidies for the sales of solar cells were started to be withdrawn by the governments in the USA and Europe. They had been supporting the market so that the photovoltaic energy industry could compete against the less costly fossil fuels currently in place.The aim was to give the solar energy industry the boost it needed to get onto a level playing field, in terms of cost, with those existing fuels. Essentially, as time has passed, the photovoltaic industry is coming closer to that goal. But then, enter the year 2011. The silver price traded up to new three-decade highs. At the same time, there were fewer and fewer government subsidies for the PV industry. So due to these market changes, silver became expensive and difficult to manage as part of the solar cell manufacturing process. Silver use by the solar energy industry worldwide roughly stands at 51.5 million ounces annually. At this level, the industry consensus is that photovoltaic no longer represents the bull consumer that silver producers once enjoyed.