Grimbo's blog
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.
Matt Grimshaw, Editorial Director, Future Photovolatics
One of the things that surprised me the most upon my introduction to the photovoltaics industry was just how unpredictable it was in comparison to the relative stability of the semiconductor industry (in the same manner as the San Andreas fault is stable relative to a 5-year-old after a double shot espresso) — in that as it has not being going through the same cycle for 30+ years, so everything’s relatively new.
Matt Grimshaw, Editorial Director, Future Photovolatics
This last post is really an overview of the event as a whole as it’s the first time I’d attended, and I’d really left a lot of time open to meet with new contacts and members of my editorial board. Firstly, a few pros and cons.
Matt Grimshaw, Editorial Director, Future Photovolatics
It seems that one or two of the things I’ve written recently have perhaps put the odd nose out of joint. As someone that’s not journalistically trained, I’m thrilled that people are reading what I’m writing in the first place, for I’m going to carry on… At the second day of SPI, I’ve run again into some controversial issues (including cycling back to an issue from last week, which I’ll get to in due course).
Matt Grimshaw, Editorial Director, Future Photovolatics
While hoofing it around the biggest of the three halls (the South Hall), I bumped into one of my new PV industry friends, who shall remain anonymous for now because I forgot to ask permission to quote him. A conversation was struck up around the amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin-film PV business, its health (or lack of it), and how the technology has been written off by many as a failed venture.
Matt Grimshaw, Editorial Director, Future Photovolatics
Not too long ago, one of the Future Photovoltaics editorial board members, Bryan Ekus, wrote a blog post regarding the much discussed issue of a photovoltaic technology roadmap (PVTR), and it’s had me thinking long and hard about whether there is a need, and just what needs to happen to the industry to make a PV roadmap necessary.
