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This sixteenth edition of Photovoltaics International marks four years of production of the quarterly journal. As always, our focus is on efficiency and quality improvement and cost reduction in manufacturing. As 2012 rolls along, companies are falling by the wayside due to supply and demand issues, ASP declines and drastic governmental subsidy cuts. A clear picture of 2012 is offered through papers from the likes of TÜV Rheinland, Fraunhofer ISE, SEMI PV Group and EPIA, amongst others.
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This digital interactive Lite sees Tom Cheyney follow Agua Caliente’s progress on becoming one of first truly utility-scale PV power farms, where 40–50MW (AC) will be commissioned by the end of the year. We also feature one of the world’s largest silicon thin-film PV power plants, Avenal; a report on warnings of the collapse of module prices from Solarbuzz and PI-Berlin presents tips on PV module testing. A print version of this edition will be distributed at Solar Power International 2011 in Dallas, Texas.
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Manufacturing the Solar Future 2012, the second in the Photovoltaics International PV Production Annual series, delivers the next installment of in-depth technical manufacturing information on PV production processes.
Comments
Why one should buy CIGS modules? It is not criticism. I am looking for a convincing value proposition.
Hi Felicity,
please note some faulty information in the following sentence of your post:
“Solar Frontier, Global Solar, Solibro and Avancis have opted for an evaporation process while Stion and MiaSolé use sputtering.”
Solar Frontier, Avancis and Stion use a sequential approach; first sputtering the metal precursors followed by a annealing (slow or rapid) in a Selenium and Sulfur atmosphere. The origin of process all three companies apply is the same: ARCO/Siemens Solar, which had its first commericial CIGSSe production running before 2000 in Camarillo, USA.
Global Solar, Solibro and nowadays Soltecture use coevaporation, as well as Solyndra and Wuerth Solar did. The coevaporation process which leads to world record efficiencies of above 20% for a Lab cell.
Miasole uses as far as I know a reactive sputtering process, a hybrid between the sequential approach and coevaporation.
Interesting article, but the 20.5% cell from Solyndra would be a world record and has not previously been reported as far as I, and a quick google search, know. I suspect the author got that wrong.
I feel that while assessing the problems with VC funding for CIGS, this article in written in a way that slips into being dismissive of the entire thin film PV industry, particularly in the lede. In this, it is in danger of missing a much bigger picture.
First, this is a global industry, not a national industry. The commissioning of Solar Frontier’s Kunitomi plant was a watershed event for both CIGS and thin film - making it a “vintage year” for thin film, if not in the United States. More significantly, according to Greentech Media they appear to have sold more than 500 MW of the 577 MW of CIGS they produced in 2011, far more than was shipped by all CIGS companies in 2010 and putting CIGS markets on a significant growth path.
Second, First Solar continues to pump out CdTe modules for its massive utility-scale pipeline (much of which is in the U.S.), and is the only one of the top 5 PV manufacturers by revenue that continued to post positive operating income and substantial profits in the first three quarters of 2011, as even formerly highly profitable c-Si manufacturers such as Yingli and Trina slipped into the red.
It’s a very American view to think that the sun rises and sets on VC, but that’s just not the case, and whether or not American CIGS start-ups survive is not ultimately that big of a deal for the technology. As long as Showa Shell continues to think that this is a good bet and Solar Frontier can continue to sell out its product, that alone will push CIGS into the mainstream. First Solar has shown that there doesn’t need to be more than one successful manufacturer for a PV technology to be successful. Furthermore, while MiaSole has shown some impressive efficiencies, much of the technological leadership continues to come from Germany.
We at Solar Server consider the increase in CIGS efficiencies, manufacturing capacities and shipments to be one of the most significant technology trends in the global solar industry in 2011, as is detailed in our most recent analysis of the industry.
I am pleased to see that there are professionals in the solar industry who know the inner workings of CIGS and its incompatibility with the milestones set by VCs. Only those VCs with patience and wherewithal to add to their investments will succeed. Otherwise this technology is the domain of the large industry houses who have the bandwidth to seed the technology and sustain its continued improvement towards achieving the cost/performance target. With adoption of CIGS in large-scale utility projects, it is no longer an ‘also ran’ technology compared to crystalline or CdTe for that matter.