Blogs
Matt Grimshaw, Editorial Director, Future Photovoltaics
So just after I penned the last post (delayed due to IT “difficulty” – or rather my difficulty with the punctuality of writing) on the semiconductor/PV overlap, it emerged that 60% of SunPower is now in the hands of the French oil giant Total. While it was an initial shock to me, really it shouldn’t have been, if you take a look at the historic relationships between Big Oil companies in the PV industry. My big problem is that due to my tech infatuation, I tend to forget that the PV business as a whole is not so much about the technology but its product: energy.
Matt Grimshaw, Editorial Director, Future Photovoltaics
Since PV became the biggest thing in the tech hype universe since the system on a chip, there has been a steady flow of semiconductor personnel migrating to PV like flocks of geese flying south for the winter. Semiconductor is now quite a mature business, and as such, is very tough and very, very EXPENSIVE. Many talented engineers and scientists jumped into PV just before it went ballistic, having recognized the potential and/or been approached by those who wanted or needed their talents. Many more came to the PV industry after suffering from brutal layoffs as 200 mm fabs were shut down in droves as the monster foundries grew ever faster and could make chips far more cost-effectively and quickly due to the sheer scale of their operations. Indeed, when I first got to the PV industry myself, I was surprised at the sheer volume of familiar names all around me: Applied Materials, Oerlikon, Centrotherm, ABB, Advanced Energy ... it was like visiting a foreign land and bumping into your old mates from back home. The only thing missing was the chip manufacturers that I knew, which of course with the announcements of Intel’s consulting with MiaSolé added to their investment in SpectraWatt back in ’08 and TSMC’s spin out of its solar foundry project into a subsidiary (with IPO plans), added to Samsung’s entry in 2010 (well, in fairness, Samsung is in practically everything that has a whiff of electronics); all of which equals three of the top five chip manufacturers having some kind of presence in the PV space, a fact I’m sure sees other chip manufacturers monitoring progress very closely.
Matt Grimshaw, Editorial Director, Future Photovoltaics
This is really a follow-on post to the one put up on Monday. I’m trying to blog every Friday now, but sometimes Windows 7 has other ideas, like doing one of its untimely shutdowns and hiding the Word doc I’d typed the last post on. Anyway – onto the matter at hand: Amongst other nerd attributes, I’m a complete car nut to boot and a massive fan of the British TV show Top Gear. Recently Tesla sued the show for what amounts to being mean to one of their cars. To put this in context, on that show, when they “test” cars, they really mean “thrash it to within an inch of its life” – they’d pounded 50+ miles-per-gallon diesel BMWs around there so hard they only pull 13 MPG. So the idea that Tesla is crying over being treated like everyone else is laughable. Yes the Tesla kept running out of juice after 40-50 miles, but it IS a sports car. Anyway, I’m going off piste, sorry. The real highlight to me is that a hardcore-car-nut TV show was even taking an electric car seriously, and I quite like them (electric cars).
Matt Grimshaw, Editorial Director, Future Photovolatics
PV seems to be rife with major announcements of late, with GE being the most obvious.
While rummaging for background on a paper I’m chasing for the August edition, I stumbled across the BBC’s take on the GE Fab story from last week. What caught my eye specifically was a quote from Professor Bill Moomaw, director of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at Tufts University, who was quoted as saying, “In 2008 China roared past us like we were standing still in solar, and in 2009 they roared past us in wind. They came from nowhere; they did it all in a decade.” Of course my interest was piqued because of our recent agreement to work with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Matt Grimshaw, Editorial Director, Future Photovolatics
It’s obvious that large-scale solar farms are important, not just to the future of the PV industry but as a cure to mankind’s addiction to oil and to preserve what’s left for important oil-based products like plastics, which have become indispensable (albeit perhaps too disposable in some applications) for our collective futures.
However, in the same way that nobody in the 1960s could see too far beyond the application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and the limited memory applications in the chip industry, or any kind of profitable market for personal computers in the 1970s (we have IBM’s lack of foresight to thank for the PC, don’t forget), it’s fast becoming obvious to me that the PV industry is in a similar situation right now.
Danielle Merfeld, Leader, Solar Technologies Platform, GE Global Research
In the latest issue of FuturePV, Torsten Brammer from Sunfilm AG outlined the need for more widely adopted standards and procedures for rating PV modules. As he reported, there are a myriad of ways that modules can be rated, and this rating is directly linked to the value of the modules. He outlined some common issues faced in interpreting the ratings and the different ways companies approach assigning a market value. Though I was aware of many of these nuanced idiosyncrasies, it made my head spin to see them laid bare in listed order.
Joseph Monashipour, Grapevine, Texas
If you listen to some of the arguments in this Wonderfest presentation, the case for cheap high-efficiency solar becomes even more evident. In comparison, the solutions proposed in the presentation (sequestering carbon dioxide and becoming dependent on very high-tech liquid fluoride thorium nuclear reactors) seem somewhat outlandish.
Joseph Monashipour, Grapevine, Texas
Upon your recommendation, I read Jeff Goodell’s article about Big Coal’s comeback (“After a Strong Counterattack, Big Coal Makes a Comeback”).
I have no knowledge of the facts of the case, nor any opinion about political tactics that could counter such comeback. But if solar is to realize its potential in a significant way, which it should sooner rather than later, I feel it must set its goals such as to improve our lives in a significant rather than incremental way. It has to be disruptive, as were many other factors of historical change in the past.
Craig Hunter, Vice President and General Manager, Clean Energy Technologies, Intermolecular Inc.
In my last posting, I highlighted some of the potential problems with the venture capital investment philosophy as applied to the PV business. Venture capitalists expect a few extremely profitable investments to compensate for a low overall success rate in picking winners. As a result, the solar cell start-ups receiving funding in the U.S. tend to be riskier ventures that have at least a chance of producing a huge pay-off.
Danielle Merfeld, Leader, Solar Technologies Platform, GE Global Research
One thing that struck me about the Solar Power International show last month was the number of companies that were positioning themselves to participate in the growing North American PV market. In many cases this means not only setting up a sales presence, but manufacturing as well.
