Silver is influencing both the pace of the green transition and the flow of long-term capital in ways that are already playing out across current projects.
As green technologies move from pilots to large-scale rollout, the materials enabling them become increasingly critical. Silver now plays a central role in how solar, electric mobility and digital infrastructure are designed and deployed. Over the past decade, industrial demand for silver has increased from about 491 million ounces in 2016 to more than 680 million ounces by 2024, driven largely by solar manufacturing, electrification and electronics. Silver now shapes how technologies are conceptualised, produced and adopted.
Across procurement and manufacturing teams, the emphasis is now on dependable access. Collectively, these decisions point to how firmly silver is built into modern technology.
Through 2025, this growing reliance has tightened the market, with supply struggling to keep pace with industrial demand. That tightening is also reshaping silver’s role in portfolios. It is moving beyond a purely cyclical role and being paired with gold, blending exposure to real economic build-out with stability during periods of uncertainty.
Silver is influencing both the pace of the green transition and the flow of long-term capital in ways that are already playing out across current projects.
Solar power acceleration
I see solar as the clearest signal of how silver demand has shifted. As solar scaled through 2025, silver use increased because performance and reliability mattered more than cutting material content. Newer panel designs still depend on silver to deliver consistent output at scale.
In real manufacturing, those trade-offs tend to favour what works, not what looks efficient on paper. Once projects move into large deployments, material choices settle quickly. With solar capacity continuing to expand into 2026, silver demand from this sector keeps building in a steady, predictable way.
EV and battery revolution
As EV platforms mature, they are becoming far more electronics-heavy, and that shifts material priorities. Silver’s conductivity and reliability make it difficult to substitute when systems need to perform consistently under load. As manufacturers like Tesla and BYD scale production, silver demand rises quietly alongside it, embedded in the electronics that keep these vehicles efficient and dependable. Importantly, this demand tracks structural electrification trends, not short-term cycles, reinforcing its long-term nature.
Supply crunch realities
On the supply side, silver has been slower to respond. Mine output has remained broadly steady while demand has continued to grow. Factors like underinvestment, longer development timelines, and geopolitical uncertainty have limited how quickly supply can adjust. By 2025, this gap had begun to narrow available buffers in the market. With less flexibility on the supply side, price movements tend to become more sensitive to shifts in demand. As this dynamic extends into 2026, silver is likely to face periods of greater volatilities rather than smooth adjustments.
Dual-metal synergy
This is where pairing silver with gold becomes strategically compelling. Silver brings exposure to industrial build-out and the pace of the green transition, while gold tends to respond to very different signals, uncertainty, inflation expectations, and shifts in risk appetite. Held together, they reflect two realities playing out at the same time. One is about growth driven by electrification and infrastructure. The other is about stability when that growth encounters friction. Rather than treating silver as a standalone bet, combining it with gold creates a more balanced way to participate in long-term transitions without being overly exposed to short-term swings.
Emerging tech catalysts
Beyond solar and electric mobility, emerging technologies continue to reinforce silver’s relevance. As digital infrastructure expands and becomes more performance-intensive, materials that support reliability and efficiency matter more. Advances across communications networks, data-intensive computing, and healthcare technologies all tend to draw on silver in small but critical ways. Individually, these uses may seem incremental; however, taken together, they add weight to industrial demand. As these technologies scale through 2026, they are likely to act as reinforcing drivers rather than sudden disruptors, strengthening silver’s role across a widening set of applications.
Policy and ESG tailwinds
Policy direction is also lending longer-term support to silver’s role. As governments push for cleaner energy systems and more secure supply chains, attention is gradually shifting toward materials that sit at the centre of these transitions. Frameworks in Europe around critical raw materials, along with India’s expansion of renewable capacity, are shaping how projects are planned and financed. While policy alone does not create demand, it helps anchor it. In this context, silver benefits from being closely aligned with sustainability goals and infrastructure priorities, adding a layer of resilience to how it is viewed within long-term portfolios.
Looking towards 2026 with a clear vision
What feels different going forward is the degree of intentionality behind material choices and capital allocation. As markets mature and transitions accelerate, portfolios are likely to benefit from approaches that reflect both progress and preparedness. A dual-metal perspective does exactly that. It stays aligned with long-term infrastructure build-out while remaining adaptable as conditions evolve. From here into 2026 and beyond, this balance may prove valuable for participating in change with confidence.
The author is head of research at Augmont
Published on January 3, 2026
