Your daily dose of Photovoltaic Technology Developments and Solar News

• Most Popular Articles

  • Top Stories 2008 – Power Generation – the good, the bad, and the efficiency
  • Top stories 2008 – Materials – could UMG be the answer?
  • Acciona’s Portuguese PV plant may be big, but one of the numbers just doesn’t add up
  • Top Stories 2008 - Thin Film – orders, gigawatts and growth
  • Top Stories 2008 – Cell Processing – efficiency is the name of the game!

• Editor's Picks

  • Top stories 2008 – Materials – could UMG be the answer?
  • Massive 168% photovoltaic module overcapacity to cause pricing collapse in 2009
  • Solar Santa: Ohio doles out millions in development dollars to local PV companies
  • Recession, what recession? Cavalcade of solar PV, renewable investments total billions in a day
  • Total taps into Konarka with US$45 million investment & R&D pact

• Latest Videos

  • Canadian Solar VP Robert Patterson talks Umg Si product lines - 150MW-plus in 2009
  • Delivering gasses for rapid growth in the PV Industry - Linde Electronics
  • Secrets of turnkey PV Module lines with Spire CEO Roger Little
  • Large area thin-film modules approach scale manufacturing with Applied Materials and Signet Solar
  • A passion for solar change: Anton Milner, Q-Cells CEO - exclusive interview

By Sylvère Leu, Conergy AG, Frankfurt, Germany

ABSTRACT
Each year, the photovoltaic market has been achieving a two-digit growth rate. The resulting economy-of-scale effects are not enough to achieve grid parity on their own. In order to reduce the production costs to grid parity level, new concepts and ideas must be realised as the basis for a photovoltaic factory. There are four main requirements that must be fulfilled in order to adhere to this cost reduction strategy: a highly integrated factory; automated and stable processes; a production control system (PCS) that provides the statistic data in order to continually optimise the processes; and an optimally-sized aligned production capacity.