After reaching a record high of $121.62 per ounce on January 29 and stabilizing between $70 and $90 per ounce over the past two weeks, silver prices have begun climbing again, reaching $95.80 per ounce this morning.
“Escalating tensions in the Middle East are expected to continue bolstering investment demand for safe-haven assets such as gold and silver,” Philip Newman, Managing Director of independent research consultancy Metals Focus, told pv magazine. “Silver is also likely to benefit from the weaker-than-expected US inflation data for January, which has underpinned hopes of further interest-rate cuts in the United States.”
“Elsewhere, tail risks are expected to abound,” he went on to say. “These include ongoing US tariff uncertainties, growing concerns regarding fiscal sustainability in key economies, and overstretched valuations in AI-tech stocks. Collectively, these factors present a compelling investment case for defensive assets. While gold will remain the main beneficiary of portfolio diversification, silver is poised to enjoy significant spillover effects due to its close correlation with the yellow metal. Against this backdrop, Metals Focus expects silver to surpass its early-2026 high later this year.”
“That said, two main concerns persist: the recent spike in silver price volatility, and ongoing thrifting and substitution within some industrial applications,” Newman added. “While the latter may take time to fully resonate with investors, it remains a key reason why silver may gradually begin to underperform gold as 2026 progresses.”
Silver paste currenly accounts for around 30% of total solar cell costs, creating a difficult environment for manufacturers already facing overcapacity, falling module prices and squeezed margins. Companies are exploring alternative metallization technologies and other ways to reduce silver consumption.
Last month, China-based metallization paste supplier DK Electronic Materials highlighted this trend, revealing that a gigawatt-scale customer will adopt its high-copper paste for commercial production.
According to Radovan Kopecek, the co-founder and director of German research institute the International Solar Energy Research Center Konstanz (ISC Konstanz), an immediate transition to copper is technically and economically feasible. “Copper screen printing can be implemented quickly, and we have received many inquiries about it,” he told pv magazine last month.
Ning Song, from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia, explained that even if adopting a high-copper paste results in a small efficiency drop, the price trade-off should be acceptable to manufacturers. “That trade-off is acceptable if it does not introduce new reliability risks. Ultimately, the decision depends on how well the efficiency loss can be offset at the module and system level,” she told pv magazine.
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