It is essential to understand the investment and operating costs of photovoltaic power plants in terms of economic parameter calculations such as levelized cost of electricity (LCoE). The dynamic behaviour of national and international markets requires a precise and detailed estimation of costs, and this knowledge is especially important to investors and policymakers. Only if the investment and operating costs of PV power plants are known can the price of electricity and the more detailed levelized cost of electricity be precisely calculated. High investment costs also require reliable investment policies and close cooperation between financial institutions (such as banks and investment funds) and power plant owners. Investment in large-scale PV power plants requires a detailed evaluation of solar radiation potential and grid availability, as well as a load analysis and a precise economic evaluation. When the investment cost based on the above-mentioned parameters is known, an estimation of the operating costs should be the next step. When all the costs of a PV power plant have been estimated, the price of electricity, or even a more detailed LCoE, can be calculated. This paper presents the trend of investment costs and some typical maintenance costs, and calculations of electricity price based on recent real data for large-scale PV power plants.
The benefits of solar photovoltaic (PV) power are well known, and, as this awareness rises and the cost of generating PV electricity declines, the technology is becoming more competitive with conventional electricity sources in market segments all across Europe. But bureaucratic hurdles remain a persistent threat to the widespread installation and integration of PV, often making it difficult to take advantage of the technology. In many countries, administrative processes and permitting procedures still require significant improvement. As a result, planning and connecting a solar photovoltaic system to the grid can still take several years in Europe.
The PV industry stands on the verge of an enormous achievement – an installed base of PV plants with 100GW of energy generation capability. This milestone has come about because of the contributions of a fully global industry that has blossomed in the past decade. Yet even though the PV industry traces its heritage to before the space programme, as with any dynamically growing industry most industry members have joined in the past five years. And each generation often makes the same mistakes that a previous generation made. Sometimes the same people move from one industry to another and repeat the same mistakes there. The PV industry is rediscovering ultra-competitive market dynamics that have previously been seen in other high-technology commodity markets. This paper begins with a discussion of one such market – the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) industry – and then looks at the current PV market and the industry outlook.
How much carbon is emitted in producing a solar PV module and launching it on the market? This could be an important question which project developers, installers, investors, government agencies and end customers might ask solar PV manufacturers in the future. To answer it, producers need to know the direct emissions from the manufacturing process, as well as those generated from the activities of manufacturers in the upstream supply chain (including raw material acquisition, upstream energy use, packaging, transportation and procurement), and also those arising from module usage and eventual recycling. This paper, written in a cooperation between EuPD Research and Deutsches CleanTech Institut (DCTI), presents an overview of PV’s carbon footprint.
The last several years have seen a significant number of publications on wire saw data in regard to process optimization theory applied to solar wafering. The methods vary, but fundamentals concern the mechanical dynamics of the wire sawing process, where measurements of the wire forces in the silicon slot using free abrasive are studied; however, these data are not yet fully correlated to a complete thermodynamic analysis of the problem. The objectives of the empirical development of the process theory are also widely varied, but there is industry agreement that it is being faced with the fundamental limits of cutting rates in processes that use free abrasive slurries and a single wire. The limit arises from intrinsic thermodynamic limits of the delivery of work energy to the silicon slot. Similarly, these same principles prevent us from increasing the wafer load to overcome the limitation as work energy transfer rates are countered by higher entropic losses that occur as power and wafer load are increased. The effect results in the problem that the wafer load may not be increased without proportionately reducing table speed. The fundamental nature of these limits suggests that they involve theoretically calculable energy quantities of thermodynamic limiting functions, which restrict the ‘useful’ work that we can extract from the system, where the work energy of interest is the abrasion of the silicon in forming the wafers. The present work reviews the theoretical issues of determining process efficiency optimums that could be used to achieve throughput gains.
Solar enterprises will each be faced with the occasional surplus or lack of solar modules in their lifetimes. In these instances, it is useful to adjust stock levels for modules at short notice, thus creating a spot market. Spot markets serve the short-term trade in different products, where the seller is able to permanently or temporarily offset surplus, while buyers are able to access attractive offers on surplus stocks and supplement existing supply arrangements as a last resort.
With new industrial challenges faced by the PV industry – such as the striking development of Chinese manufacturers, and ever more demanding investors and financial institutions – the quality of PV modules has never been as important as it is today. Because normative requirements are not matching the buyers’ expectations, the questions of what the real quality of a PV module is and how to assess it still remain. This paper analyzes the current situation in terms of quality and the causes of problems, and proposes some ways of addressing the issues in order for the industry to progress on the long path to excellence.
Traditional markets for PV will be scaling back on the level of demand for PV, but there are already signs that the developing countries will be stepping in to pick up the slack. This will be a combination of both standard grid-connected and micro-grid types of installation. Micro-grids present the opportunity for countries to develop a cellphone type of model for power distribution whereby regions without electrification can have a regional power source that allows for local access. This market is projected to become significant in the next several years, as the access to lower cost PV makes this option more easily implemented. This paper evaluates the market size of what has been an overlooked ‘niche’ for PV and describes the key considerations for a micro-grid installation, the developing conditions favouring installation, and some of the specifics of a micro-grid case study. The point is made that the grid-connected market will be increasingly assisted by the micro-grid segment as the latter becomes a significant source of PV demand and energy provision. Contrary to common notions, the micro-grid and hybrid off-grid segments will play an increasing role, even in areas with a grid in place.
Al2O3 deposition has received a lot of attention in the last few years for its attractive passivation properties of c-Si surfaces. Within the local Al back-surface field (BSF) cell concept, we considered several avenues of study: surface preparation, thermal stability, charge investigation and the ‘blistering’ phenomenon. The investigations converged on a passivation stack that includes a thin interfacial SiO2 like layer and a thin Al2O3 layer (~10nm), which undergoes a high-temperature anneal (> 600°C). In order for a surface passivation with Al2O3 to be a cost-effective step for the PV industry, a high Al2O3 deposition rate is required. Compared to the different high-throughput tools that have recently emerged on the PV market, such as atomic layer deposition (ALD) and plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD), our tool screening revealed quite similar results. The differences therefore seem to have an origin primarily in the tool specifications rather than in the achievable Al2O3 material properties.
t is well known that the cost of silicon materials is the major cost factor in crystalline silicon PV module production. Polysilicon price accounts for about 30% of total module production costs. While the PV industry has set a polysilicon price target of US$40/kg by 2015, this goal will not be reached if demand continues to exceed supply and if new plants cannot reduce operating costs below US$25/kg. Given a continued 30% annual growth in demand for PV modules, new polysilicon plants and expansions are needed to avoid shortages of high-purity, cost-effective polysilicon. This paper discusses the major factors in polysilicon production costs, the important elements of polysilicon plant design for reducing operating costs, the key cost elements of polysilicon plant operations, and how the design of polysilicon products can reduce crystal growth costs.
