What does an industry need for sustainable, long-term success? A market, customers and suppliers, and – most certainly – excellent products that can be sold. When looking at various different mature industries there is one thing they all have in common – they have industry-initiated roadmaps! With SEMI’s experience in the semiconductor industry over the last 40 years, the example of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) has proved that pre-competitive industry collaboration among the supply chain and among competitors leads to a reduction in costs, a better time to market and an increased efficiency. Moreover, it helps all players to benefit from jointly solved manufacturing challenges.
Recently, PV demand forecasting has seen greater contributions from countries that had previously been lumped together in the rest-of-world (RoW) bucket – a category previously reserved for the collective PV demand from countries or regions outside of major (FiT-stimulated) European PV markets. Research has shown that PV adoption outside Europe will not simply increase overall PV demand levels, but will assist in smoothing out erratic demand cyclicality. At first glance, the increased gigawattage of demand being added from the RoW grouping provides an essential component in driving long-term industry growth scenarios. Non-European PV demand is forecast to increase from approximately 30% to 60% of global PV demand between 2011 and 2016. However, more tangible benefits of having an increased number of countries feeding into the global demand mix extend beyond just the significant ‘growth’ potential this situation offers to the PV supply chain. Of these various benefits, perhaps the one that will provide the greatest level of comfort to the PV supply chain will be a collective ‘smoothing’ effect in quarterly demand swings. This should have a positive effect on factory shipment schedules and hopefully provide an end to some of the boom-and-bust cycles that have negatively impacted the fortunes of the PV supply chain during 2010 and 2011.
The PV industry is undergoing dramatic changes. Like a carnival ride gone dreadfully wrong, exhilaration has been supplanted by dread; joy has been replaced by fear. Just look around you – provided you are able to turn your head to defy the g-forces acting upon you as we bank and turn wildly along. You will see PV companies closing their doors for good. You will see extraordinarily talented people throughout the supply chain, shifting positions everywhere and looking for safe-haven jobs. And you will also see once-leading PV companies burning cash and losing their status as ‘bankable’. Everywhere we turn, we see companies in the supply chain shuttering production as if to balance markets.
Silver paste is a key component of the design of nearly all silicon wafer solar cells manufactured in 2011. The high cost of the precious metal in the paste formulation means that silver paste is also the second-highest component of the total cost of materials. This article reviews the silver paste supply chain and the challenges in silver paste formulation and manufacture, and discusses some of the approaches for reducing or removing entirely the use of silver in crystalline silicon cell manufacture.
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 weak demand that has blighted the solar industry for much of 2011 is likely continue into the new year, according to a new report on the US market from ClearSky Advisors. Despite a growth in installed capacity, overcapacity in the supply chain will continue to affect module prices, with ClearSky forecasting these to fall for at least the first half of 2012.
Joint Forces for Solar (JF4S), a global synergy of stakeholders along the solar supply chain, has gained a new backer. pvXchange, who is an online business-to-business brokerage of PV modules and inverters, will be among the sponsors of JF4S’s fourth U.S. breakfast briefing and networking forum at Solar Power International in Dallas in October.
Despite the first-half slump in PV installations and significant inventory build across the PV supply chain, leading polysilicon producer Hemlock Semiconductor would seem to be riding its 50th year in business in style, as Dow Corning management noted that the polysilicon JV arm had remained ‘sold-out’ in the first half of the year and the situation would remain the same for sometime.
A period of equipment digestion or what's known as a reset could be at play after aggressive capacity expansions across the PV supply chain in 2010, according to the PV book-to-bill analysis featured in the forthcoming "Solarbuzz PV Equipment Quarterly" report. According to Finlay Colville, senior analyst at Solarbuzz, the PV book-to-bill is forecast to dip sharply below parity before rebounding in Q4’11.
SolFocus has promoted chief operating officer Bob Legendre to president and COO, reporting to CEO Mark Crowley. In his new, expanded position, Legendre will oversee a broad range of activities including manufacturing, supply chain, engineering and deployment. As the COO, Legendre led SolFocus’s engineering organization and finalized SolFocus’s product realization and product certification for deployment in EMEA, Australia and North America.
