Future Visions & Current Concerns
Pierre Verlinden, Trina Solar
The great price decline of PV modules is pretty much over. With almost zero gross margin, PV companies are struggling to stay alive. The PV industry will finally be mature when it can stand on its own two feet without subsidies. The companies that will survive must offer highly reliable products, have impeccable manufacturing skills and demonstrate innovation to reduce LCOE.
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Linda Steele Wilson, SEMATECH
Roadmapping is usually described as an effort to address pre-competitive issues, but the term “pre-competitive” is not so easily defined: Manufacturing and technology challenges that are common to many organizations can be defined as pre-competitive by some but areas of competitive advantage by others. A more accurate definition is that roadmapping is an effort to indicate difficult challenges and imminent areas of need, and to project where competitive opportunities may arise as the industry and research community seek solutions in the competitive space.
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The photovoltaic industry roadmaps point to increased complexity of cell processing to enable improved cell efficiencies while decreasing the final cost to customers. Many of these processes occur at elevated temperatures or in applications where the materials used in the process equipment require special properties of electrical or thermal conductivity.
Robert Geer, Professor, Nanoscale Science; Vice President, Academic Affairs, College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering; University at Albany
Is the global PV industry mature? Most insiders would say no. But none would argue that it is indeed maturing; and by most measures, that maturation is accelerating.
In this section, we are treated to two complementary viewpoints on technology maturation, and PV maturation in particular. Pierre Verlinden, chief scientist and vice chair of the State Key Laboratory of Photovoltaic Science and Technology, Trina Solar, China, argues that PV has turned the corner of adolescence and lays out what it will take for PV to make a run at adulthood. From a more general perspective, Linda Steele Wilson, program manager for the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), looks at the evolution of technology roadmapping and highlights key elements of its success – lessons the PV industry should heed.
From Production Facility to Power Plant: Adapting Construction Practices to the Changing Solar Market Realities.
The economic equilibrium of the solar energy sector has undergone a jarring adjustment over the past year. The frenzy of production capacity additions has abated, as the demand for photovoltaic modules has not kept up with the prodigious output from the factories and has suffered due to regional policy perturbations, pushing industrywide inventory into the gigawatts and causing the price of panels to drop precipitously. As solar manufacturers either slow down or stop their factory construction ramps – and growing numbers of lower-tier players leave the competitive pitch altogether – the strategic focus has shifted across the value chain.
Armin Aberle, Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS), National University of Singapore
The rate of progress in solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity generation is breathtaking. During the last four years, the prices of PV modules and installed PV systems were reduced by more than 50 percent. For example, in Germany, the world’s leading PV market, the price (exclusive of sales tax) of a newly installed 10-kWp rooftop PV system is now below 2 euro/Wp. These price reductions resulted from various factors, including economy of scale, increased competition – for example, via Chinese PV manufacturers that are enjoying access to inexpensive loans for building factories – and ongoing incremental technical innovations across the entire PV value chain. In 2011, more than 27 GWp of new PV systems were installed globally. In 2020, the annual additions will be in the 50 to 100 GWp range, and the levelized cost of PV electricity over the systems’ lifetimes will be cost-effective in many countries, as suggested by Figure 1. Beyond 2020, PV electricity will establish an ever-increasing cost advantage over conventional electricity, due to mass production, ongoing technical innovations and an increasing willingness in more and more countries to pay a small premium for clean electricity.
Christopher Norris, Alta Devices
In the United States, we enjoy stable, plentiful and inexpensive supplies of energy, the country’s population growth is modest, and the extremes in economic opportunities and outcomes are less pronounced than in many parts of the world. Unfortunately, the same is not true for the rest of the world. The population of the U.S. has increased by only 125 million people in the past 50 years. During that same time, the population of the world has increased by 4 BILLION people![1] Access to energy is far from assured for many of these people. William Kamkwamba experienced this firsthand. In “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,”[2] he tells of his life in a village with no electricity and no running water. During an extended drought and famine, Kamkwamba is forced to drop out of school, but he devotes his free time to building a simple windmill to provide electricity for a few light bulbs in his family’s hut and to drive a pump for water. His efforts transform their lives and open up new possibilities for his entire village. For Kamkwamba, and much of the world’s population, talk of “grid parity” is meaningless because there simply is no grid.
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Wim C. Sinke, Staff Member Solar Energy, Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands
The heat is on
Most people no longer ask whether PV will be a success; there is little doubt about that anymore. The question is now rather which forms of PV (i.e., technologies and system types) will be successful. I consider this a luxury situation, caused by the broad portfolio of technologies available and the many applications that can be served by PV. In this section of Future Photovoltaics, two authors give their views on this.
Christopher Norris makes a plea for high-efficiency, ultra-thin devices based on gallium arsenide for use under one sun illumination. His company, Alta Devices, specializes in development of this new technology.
Robert E. Geer, Professor, Nanoscale Science; Vice President, Academic Affairs, College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering; University at Albany
For decades, the holy grail for solar energy has been meaningful competitiveness with conventional grid-based (i.e., fossil fuel) power. But as the PV technology base expands and we reach the economic “tipping point” for cost-effective solar power, is the world poised for a paradigm shift in terms of grid-based energy? Christopher Norris of Alta Devices and Armin Aberle of the National University of Singapore think that just might be the case.
120 years at the top. How did we get there? For this many years, DECKER Anlagenbau GmbH has managed to correctly assess technological developments and gear the company toward the current needs of the industry. Today the company builds silicon recycling systems for the photovoltaic industry, and once again has its finger on the pulse of time. Where once iron and steel was cast, now customized units are built for wet chemical surface treatment. The company’s history reads like a journey through the industry’s history.
