PV technology equipment and market report

LYON, FRANCE: Yole Développement updated its new markets and technological study dedicated to the photovoltaic industry: Photovoltaic Technology Equipment & Market Report 2009.

In its analysis, Yole Développement takes into account the financial crisis: the company presents an overview of the PV industry including all markets and technological impacts. This markets and technological study offers a full description and analysis of photovoltaic’s market, technologies, manufacturing processes, equipment and materials. It also includes key figures, analyses and useful tools for strategic decisions.Source: Yole Développement.

Financial crisis: a direct impact
For several years, the photovoltaic (PV) industry was primarily seen as an outstanding financial investment, delivering a high‐performance return‐on‐investment (ROI) with limited risk.

The objectives were simply to adapt the production capacities to answer a high market demand. In this context, polysilicon and wafer producers, cell and module manufacturers were assured to sell their entire production.

However, 2009 has been quite particular as the financial crisis has not spared the PV industry. The credit crunch, lower‐than‐expected market growth, and a large product offer have in fact forced companies to be more innovative than ever. As a consequence the whole PV chain, from polysilicon producers to module manufacturers, is working on new technical solutions to reach grid parity and finally make PV a competitive renewable energy source.

Government incentives as well as new power grid structure (e.g. smart grid) will contribute, in the coming years, in making PV a viable alternative to conventional energy sources such as coal or nuclear. As cost reduction has become one of the top priorities for equipment and material suppliers, we are today seeing them partnering with cell manufacturers to pull production cost down.

Worldwide investments in R&D as well as in cell production capacity have reached an unprecedented level. Cell manufacturers will start benefiting from economies of scale in the coming years, but innovation in the field of material and equipment will remain a key parameter to sustain the growth. Manufacturers will develop more and more new technologies based on well‐established techniques from various industries such as semiconductor, display, printing, glass, etc.

Even with a slowdown in the fourth quarter of 2008, the market, boosted by demand for thin‐film equipment, was incredibly high that year. “We estimate that total revenue for equipment exceeded 2.7 Billion Euros. Until the end of 2009 and during 2010, because of strong overcapacities, total revenue is forecast to decrease by 45 percent compared to 2008 to 1.5 Billion Euros”, explains Gaetan Rull, Market Analyst at Yole Développement.

Market demand is forecast to come back after 2010 and will progressively impact the production sites by increasing the fab utilization rates. Investments in fab extensions and related equipment are expected to follow in 2011 although they will arrive with a slight time lag behind the demand increase.

PV equipment market: what has been changed?
• A large number of companies invested in polysilicon manufacturing capacity
For example, incumbents such as Hemlock, Wacker and REC are in the process of doubling or even tripling their production capacity while keeping a low manufacturing cost.

Moreover, motivated by a silicon shortage and high prepayments, a lot of new players have purchased Siemens‐type equipment and entered the market in 2009: DC Chemical, LDK, GCL Poly Energy, etc.

Yole Développement also observed new developments in low‐cost technologies such as Fluidized Bed Reactor with players like AE polysilicon, MEMC, or Peaksun, upgraded metallurgical grade promoted by Becancour, 6N Silicon, Dow Corning, etc.

• The thin‐film industry has also seen major announcements
Both companies, Nanosolar or Solyndra, set performance at the next level up while decrease the cost per watt. Thanks to revolutionary cell designs and new production concepts, the firms are now positioning themselves as challengers to First Solar.

First Solar, considered by many as a true game‐changer, definitely demonstrated its strong leadership and managed to build a Giga‐Watt factory in just a few years.

• New alliances have been signed in 2009
Yole Développement followed the various trends and alliances created by the entrance of Applied Materials, Oerlikon Solar, Ulvac and the other OEMs.

After a large run after thin‐film equipment, a lower demand and a decrease of the silicon price, Yole Développement noticed a real impact on sales in this domain.

BIPV markets 2009 and beyond!

DUBLIN, IRELAND: Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Building-Integrated Photovoltaics Markets 2009 and Beyond" report to its offering.

This report analyzes and quantifies the current and future markets for BIPV products. These products have traditionally consisted mostly of solar panels designed to lie flush and appear unobtrusive on a structure. However, the BIPV market has changed in the past year or so, with exciting new products that incorporate PV cells into actual building materials like siding, windows, and roofing shingles.

Last year, NanoMarkets produced one of the first reports on BIPV and this year's report builds on our success and experience with this earlier study. This time, our focus is on the next generation BIPV products just mentioned and we set out in this report, just where and when they are likely to be a success.

Innovation, improved materials and to some extent, current market forces are leading to increasing diversity of BIPV products of all material types. With this in mind, the report focuses especially on what NanoMarkets regards as three key segments of the BIPV market:

(1) Flexible PV, which allows custom or even "do it yourself" BIPV products because they are simply applied (often by adhesive) to conventional building materials;
(2) BIPV glass made with c-Si PV modules. This is already being made by several firms using fairly easy glazing technology, to custom specifications of overall size and cell spacing; and
(3) Rigid BIPV tiles are increasingly being made to emulate some kind of conventional, discrete building material unit, such as roofing tiles or slates.

Of course, the arrival of new BIPV products on the market is not the only thing that has changed since last year. With the huge downturn in the economy, the PV market has taken a double hit.

First, the bottom has dropped out of the construction market, so the addressable market for BIPV is significantly smaller than it was a year ago. With this in mind, the report focuses on how BIPV technologies can break into the market now and how planners at BIPV firms can ensure that their products will do well once the new construction market begins to stabilize and how they can also best meet the demands of the retrofit market.

The other problem that all PV products faces is the decline in energy prices, which means that PV in general does not prove in economically to the same degree as in the past. With this in mind, this report discusses how BIPV specific factors notably aesthetics can help the PV industry move forward in a difficult industry.

The earliest adopters of PV devices, often simply mounted panels on rooftops with little or no regard for appearance. The next wave of PV adopters, we believe, will require that the PV system be architecturally integrated into the building structure and look good. There is also a large proportion of potential adopters who do not want any attention favorable or not. Modern BIPV is likely to allow this potential market to install PV systems "incognito."

The report also discusses the materials and technology aspect of BIPV. We look at how traditional crystalline silicon firms PV can best fit their products into the new BIPV environment and how the new TFPV and OPV/DSC technologies with their light weight and flexibility can be leveraged for BIPV applications.

The report also goes into depth on the market, policy and technology factors that make BIPV more popular in some regions versus others. Finally, our eight-year forecasts of the BIPV market quantify the opportunities in BIPV by region and by product type.

Deep Photonics' picosecond pulsed fiber lasers for film side PV processing

CORVALLIS, USA: Deep Photonics Corp., the ultra fast fiber laser company for the semiconductor, electronics and photovoltaic marketplace, has introduced two new fiber laser platforms -– the FLP-532-PPP and the FLP-355-PPP –- designed for the photovoltaic industry.

The new laser platforms feature adjustable pulse width, pulse burst packets, and variable pulse packet frequency. The new lasers allow for film side scribing of CIGS, a-Si and CdTe and through puts unachievable using nanosecond lasers. The lasers are currently available and have been shipped to OEM’s for integration with scribing tools for release this summer.

The FLP-532-PPP and the FLP-355-PPP are visible and ultra violet lasers combining high-power output with extended lifetime, output stability, and reliability needed for demanding laser applications. With the introduction of Deep Photonics’ new Picosecond Packet Pulsing (P³) technology, the lasers provide significant improvement in cold ablation of materials.

P³ technology delivers extremely accurate depth control with pulse packet energy effective for the thin film materials currently being utilized by the solar industry.

The proprietary pulsing technology provides an optimum combination of precise, efficient material ablation while virtually eliminating the destructive affects due to thermal heating of adjacent material. Both laser platforms combine benchmark performance with design innovations to deliver consistent performance at a low operating cost.

“PV manufacturers and equipment OEMs have specifically requested an ultra-fast, short-pulse laser that cleanly and accurately ablates current and future material sets at higher throughput than today’s current technology,” said Joe LaChapelle, CEO of Deep Photonics.

“The FLP-532-PPP and FLP-355-PPP lasers directly address this need. They deliver break-through performance, multiple wavelength output, pulse-to-pulse stability and high average power. Film side processing reduces the cost of the glass used and the cost associated with glass defects that contribute to module defects and panel lifetime issues.”

The output characteristics of the lasers make them ideal for applications including edge isolation, laser fired contacts, via thru contacts, front surface contacts and thin film patterning.

“With the 532 and 355 platforms we are bringing cold ablation processing to photovoltaic applications,” commented Dr. Mike Munroe, Director of Technology for Deep Photonics.

“The combination of ionizing photonic energy, picosecond pulse packets, and adjustable repetition rates makes the lasers ideal for solar cell manufacturing applications. Due to their wavelength and high peak power, picosecond fiber lasers can remove sub-micron layers with fast plume evaporation and without excessive heat transfer to a substrate.

"The laser’s high repetition rates of energetic laser pulses require lower laser fluence than what is necessary for nanosecond lasers. As a result, our innovative fiber laser diminishes the heating, melting, and recasting associated with longer wavelengths and longer nanosecond pulses.

"Machined features are sharper and can be made smaller. The result is reduction in P1 shorts, decrease in P2 TCO series resistance and a decrease in shunt conductance offering PV Thin Film manufactures improved overall panel efficiency.”

The new 532 nm and 355 nm Deep Fiber Lasers operate at up to 10 watts and 5 watt respectively allowing the operator to define energy delivery strategies that feature 10-50 ps pulses grouped in packets from 10 ns up to 10 µs, variable pulse packet frequencies 500 kHz to 50 MHz, making the laser ideal for processing crystalline silicon (c-Si) and new advanced thin films (CdTe & CuInSe2).