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The dawn of the ‘gigawatt’ fab
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Mark Osborne, Photovoltaics International
ABSTRACT
Rapid growth in the demand for photovoltaics has enabled an aggressive ramp of production not just on the part of the leading PV manufacturers, but by many new entrants in only the last few years. Continued robust demand is resulting in larger economies of scale production that, when combined primarily with a steady improvement in conversion efficiencies, is leading the industry towards a cost-per-watt level that could finally reach grid parity at peak usage levels by the 2012 timeframe. However, this may not in itself lead to the claimed industry goal without a shift to large-scale gigawatt manufacturing facilities. We discuss the opportunities for scaling PV manufacturing with Robert Gattereder, Managing Director of M+W Zander FE GmbH after a detailed study challenges the current mind set and forces manufacturers to consider scaling manufacturing to new heights.
