Stimulus keeps Sun shining on California’s solar market

EL SEGUNDO, USA: Installations of photovoltaic (PV) solar energy systems in California are set to more than double in 2009 compared to 2008 because of incentives from the US stimulus package, defying a major downturn in the global market, according to iSuppli Corp.

Installations in California, measured in terms of Megawatts (MW) of electricity production, are set to rise by 120.1 percent in 2009, compared to a 26.9 percent decline for the entire world. California’s outperformance is expected to continue in 2010 even as global installation growth will resume, as presented in the figure.

iSuppli: Photovoltaic Percentage Growth Installation Forecast in California and Worldwide 2008-2013 in MegawattsSource: iSuppli, Sept. 2009

“The market for PV solar energy systems has been severely impacted by the ongoing economic crisis gripping the world,” said Dr. Henning Wicht, senior director and principal analyst for PV at iSuppli.

“The debt financing of solar plants for commercial customers and investor syndicates has slowed dramatically across Europe, the United States and other regions that had been steadily growing in solar installations prior to the fourth quarter of 2008.

Wicht said, however, that those looking to install PV systems in the country have been helped by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009—also known as the stimulus program—as well as the Solar Investment Tax Credit of 2008.

The government programs allowed 30 percent of a project’s cost to be rebated and also created loan guarantees for commercial projects. Because of this, iSuppli believes these initiatives will help offset, to a limited degree, the negative factors that have impacted the US PV market.

The new sunshine state
In particular, California has taken advantage of these incentives, causing installations in the state to rise even during the worst phases of the economic downturn.

At the height of the credit crunch in the first quarter, California’s installations increased to 77MW, up from just 38MW during the same period in 2008. Applications for rebates continued to increase, reaching 65MW in the second quarter, with only half the quarter counted in this data.

“This is a very encouraging sign for the solar market,” Wicht said. “It’s extremely beneficial for those investors wishing to take advantage of the new federal tax credit. It’s also a boost for those wanting to install residential household systems using the higher incentives from the California Solar Initiative Program (CSI).

Overall, iSuppli expects 350MW worth of solar systems to be installed in California during 2009. This is far and away the most of any state in America. The rest of the country is expected to install only 132MW in 2009.

Italy’s hot and cold
California isn’t the only region still pushing ahead with plans for PV installations. The Italian electricity administration authority, Gestione Servizi Electriche (GSE), in April announced that 338MW had been installed in 2008.

This far exceeds the 220MW that iSuppli originally forecasted for the country. Because of this, iSuppli is increasing its Italian forecast for 2009 to 580MW, up from 350MW.

Solar hotspots
According to iSuppli’s latest figures and feedback from companies, about 4 Gigawatts (GW) worth of new PV systems will be installed worldwide in 2009, with the majority of these installations coming from Germany at 1.5GW, Italy at 580MW and another 300MW to 400MW coming from Spain, California and Japan each.

Strategies for gaining share in the solar market (Part II)

NEW TRIPOLI, USA: Solar cell manufacturers must differentiate themselves during the slowdown in the solar cell market, according to a report: Opportunities in The Solar Market For Crystalline and Thin Film Solar Cells, recently published by The Information Network.

We wrote in Part I how solar manufacturers can differentiate their products, particularly during the economic slowdown.

We discussed increasing efficiency. For example, a local company (contact us for details) has developed a coating for amorphous and polycrystalline cells that can improve efficiency between 8 percent and 12 percent using non-vacuum techniques so that the cost is in the cents per watt range.

Tunable refractive indices make these materials excellent candidates for improving both thermal conductivity and absorption bandwidths. When these unique, novel coatings are coupled with nano-enhanced polymeric coatings, significantly improved durability and extended product life can be anticipated. UV resistance, resistance to optical crazing, and the effect of adverse weather and temperature conditions is also predicted. Films can be coated on any surface.

The other strategy for gaining share, which was mentioned in Part 1 and is discussed here, is to improve reliability:

Long life and low cost of ownership are of paramount importance if solar is to grow, particularly if there is to be a large acceptance at the residential level.

Manufacturing can introduce defects in solar cells that can result in low electron mobility (EM), electron traps and photo-degradation from UV light. These issues affect the efficiency and lifetime of solar cells and the importance of measuring electron mobility at the wafer and cell stage.

The lifetime of minority carriers has been widely identified to be the key material parameter determining the conversion efficiency of pn-junctions in silicon solar cells. Defects in the crystal lattice reduce the charge carrier lifetime and thus limit the performance of the solar cells.

Another major efficiency loss is due to impurities in the cell. These can be foreign atoms or molecules in the crystal lattice (including the dopant atoms), and provide sites where electrons and holes can recombine, thereby reducing the number of charged particles available to create an electrical current.

Lehighton Electronics (Lehighton, PA) is an example of a company that has developed a variety of tools to test and measure solar wafers. One tool can measure sheet resistance and resistivity to see if there is any subsurface damage. Another system can measure minority carrier lifetimes, while a third model can find traps in solar wafers.

Manufacturers and buyers of silicon wafers can benefit from knowledge about the quality of the product. Manufacturers can adjust growing parameters to minimize defect and impurity problems and buyers can evaluate product before going to the expense of turning them into solar cells.

Strategies for gaining share in solar market

NEW TRIPOLI, USA: Solar cell manufacturers must differentiate themselves during the slowdown in the solar cell market, according to a report Opportunities in The Solar Market For Crystalline and Thin Film Solar Cells, recently published by The Information Network.

The solar cell manufacturing industry has become a “me too” business. Solar companies manufacturing polycrystalline panels buy the same polysilicon and wafers from less than a dozen material suppliers. Companies buying an amorphous silicon thin film process line from Applied Materials or Oerlikon are making the same films as other customers from these equipment vendors.

Certainly there are new avenues of manufacturing, such as CdTe from First Solar, CIGS from half a dozen manufacturers, multi-junction cells from companies such as Uni-Solar, and building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) from an increasing number of manufacturers. These technologies differentiate these companies’ products, but the proportion of wattage manufactured, while growing, is small compared to the majority of solar panels sold using traditional methods of production, i.e., a thin film on a glass substrate.

How can the majority of solar manufacturers differentiate their products, particularly during the economic slowdown that has dropped capacity utilization to below 50 percent, and most importantly, how can they do it cheaply? Aside from the traditional lingo such as reduce costs or economies of scale, there are better ways -– increase efficiency and improve reliability.

Increase efficiency
Amorphous silicon thin film manufacturers are working on a micromorph structure in which a second layer of silicon is deposited. Applied Materials and Oerlikon are spending vast amounts of R&D to get the solar cells made on their equipment from an efficiency of less than 8 percent to above 10 percent to be competitive with CdTe and CIGS, but they are a few years away. Even so, the added cost of the vacuum equipment to deposit the additional layer can cost upwards of $50 million for a 60MW plant.

“A local company (contact me for details) has developed a coating for amorphous and polycrystalline cells that can improve efficiency between 8 and 12 percent using non-vacuum techniques so that the cost is in the cents per watt range,” noted Dr. Robert N. Castellano, President of The Information Network.

“Tunable refractive indices make these materials excellent candidates for improving both thermal conductivity and absorption bandwidths. When these unique, novel coatings are coupled with nano-enhanced polymeric coatings, significantly improved durability and extended product life can be anticipated. UV resistance, resistance to optical crazing, and the effect of adverse weather and temperature conditions is also predicted. Films can be coated on any surface,” he added.

Research was performed at an acclaimed university in Eastern PA, and the company is now looking for additional funding to optimize deposition parameters and coating properties with the intent of licensing the IP to all solar manufacturers.

Increasing the efficiency by 10 percent will increase a 50MW production line to 60MW. At a selling price of $3 per watt, that comes to added revenues of $30 million at an added cost of $1-2 per panel, that’s per panel of 100-200W, or 50,000-$100,000 per year for the 50MW facility. Imagine the possibility if this coating was put on all 7GW of power we estimate will be installed this year as indicated in a release in late November 2008.

Improve reliability
The high costs of solar panels and their installation keep them out of the “throwaway” mentality. Long life and low cost of ownership are paramount, particularly in space applications. Manufacturing can introduce defects in solar cells that can result in low electron mobility (EM), electron traps and photo-degradation from UV light.

Part 2 of this article will discuss how these issues affect efficiency and lifetime of solar cells and the importance of measuring electron mobility at the wafer and cell stage, and how these results can increase market share for the manufacturer.