There was a significant increase in the number of new products announced throughout the PV supply chain in 2010, compared to previous years. A key trend has been products focused on the utility-scale market, such as central inverters and technologies designed to cut the balance of system (BOS) costs for installations. In our review of the Top 10 most viewed products on the PV-Tech website, the diversity in the list is refreshing and covers a wide-range of subjects from solar cell metallization pastes to modules and inverters.
Although not citing confirmed orders from the recent EU PVSEC in Valencia, regarded by many suppliers to the PV manufacturing industry as the most important event each year, centrotherm photovoltaics has confirmed it is in advanced contract negotiations with well-known companies up and down the supply chain. centrotherm photovoltaics is the second largest equipment supplier in the sector, after Applied Materials.
In contrast to the cloud of uncertainty prevailing over much of the thin-film equipment supply chain today, recent quarterly results within the c-Si segment from the likes of Centrotherm, Roth and Rau, Manz Automation, Applied Materials, and Amtech suggest sunny times lie ahead for these leading c-Si tool suppliers.
Tasked with managing the integration of recently acquired companies as well as being in charge of production, quality management, supply chain amongst other duties, Roth & Rau has appointed former CEO of acquired OTB, Dr. Paul Breddels as its new Chief Operating Officer.
The latest slew of announcements from various sectors of the solar manufacturing supply chain to establish partial or complete production outsourcing is no accident and a trend that will continue grow, according to iSuppli. The market research firm noted that the latest SunPower news of a contract manufacturing deal with major electronics manufacturing services firm Flextronics is only representative of the early stages of a boom, especially in module assembly outsourcing.
Recently announced capacity expansion plans from the majority of major China-based PV manufacturers and polysilicon producers is having a knock-on effect in the supply chain with gases specialist Linde Group announcing a new round of long-term gas supply contracts in the country. Linde LienHwa (LLH) has secured multi-million US dollar contracts from companies including GS Solar, Parity Solar, CNPV Solar Power SA, General Solar Power and Argus Power.
PV manufacturers can quickly reduce their costs, and increase their yields, by using SEMI standards that were originally designed to help semiconductor fabs deal with power glitches and power costs. SEMI, the global industry association serving the manufacturing supply chains for the microelectronic, display and photovoltaic industries, has two well-established electric power standards that could prove especially useful for PV manufacturing: SEMI F47, which helps equipment deal with power disturbances, and SEMI E3, which helps users understand how much electric power is used in their recipes. This paper provides a method of lowering costs and increasing yield by applying these standards in the PV manufacturing industry.
Continued overcapacity in the upstream supply chain that includes polysilicon, solar wafers and solar cells is resulting in continued price declines and uncertainty over 2010 market demand. As a result Q-Cells is planning to hold c-Si cell production at approximately 800MW in 2009 and grow nameplate capacity to 1.1GW in 2010, on provisional market expectations for next year. However, its CIGS thin film subsidiary is expected to increase nameplate capacity to 135MW and actually ship close to 100MW in 2010, signalling the maturity of the product and potential market penetration of the technology. Solibro was said to have shipped its first products to customers in the quarter.
The rapid decline of conventional crystalline based solar modules due to weak demand and massive over-capacity throughout the supply chain has forced CPV manufacturer, Emcore to take a long hard look at its terrestrial CPV business model. In its most recent quarterly conference call company executives said that they would concentrate on solar cell receivers with 1,000 times concentrated reflected optics development and supply while licence and partner on complete systems.
Henning Wicht, iSuppli's senior director and principal analyst for photovoltaics market research, has become increasingly bearish on the photovoltaics industry due to the severe overcapacity throughout the supply chain. In a new report, Wicht projects that PV module production--which is still expanding--will reach a capacity of 7.5GW in 2009, however installations will only reach 3.9GW. This means that nearly half of all solar panels produced in 2009 will remain unsold and a massive inventory build will persist until 2012.
