Abstract
Summary
The rapid and recent commercialization of thin-film and organic PV has
automatically put the spotlight on manufacturing issues. There are many
different approaches being used today from traditional sputtering to
avant-garde functional printing approaches. In some cases the old and the new
are combined in the same fabrication plant. Some solar panel firms are going
with a turnkey plant supplied by a large equipment manufacturer. Others are
building their own plants from scratch.
With so much diversity and change in this field, NanoMarkets believes that the
time is right for this new report which surveys the manufacturing of thin-film
PV (TFPV) and organic PV (OPV.) One goal of this report is to analyze the
underlying performance of the plants built to date and to both understand
where the challenges are and where the solutions to these challenges may be
coming from. Another goal is to forecast the aggregate capacity of TFPV and
OPV plants that are currently being built throughout the world or likely to be
built in the near future. A third is to project the expenditures of TFPV firms
on production equipment over an eight year period.
One question that this report deals with specifically is the thorny question
as to how important the future role of printing will be to the PV sector and
which equipment firms are having success selling into this sector. We also
discuss such matters as the tradeoffs between low manufacturing costs and cell
efficiencies, the importance of economies of scale, integration of
manufacturing facilities, approaches to manufacturing new cell types, etc.
This report analyzes the state of the art in fabrication of both the
manufacture of the photoactive layers themselves and the metallization
process. We analyze the available data on how successful each approach to the
manufacture of thin-film and organic PV is currently being and where the firms
active in this space are looking for improvements and breakthroughs. In
addition to the analysis itself, this report includes profiles of the
manufacturing operations of 15 firms involved in producing solar products in
the TFPV and OPV sector.
Findings include:
- While First Solar will be hard to pass in the cadmium telluride (CdTe)
sector, the race for dominance in the CIGS and OPV sectors has just begun. By
2015 these two sectors combined will account for 19 percent and 10 of
aggregate capacity.
- Annual manufacturing equipment purchases by TFPV/OPV firms will reach over
$1 billion in 2009, more than double this year. NanoMarkets projects that the
market for TFPV/OPV equipment will flatten in 2010 as solar cell makers fully
utilize the capacity they have rapidly put in place since 2007 but resume
growth and reach $4.8 billion in 2015.
- Printing promises to reduce manufacturing costs, although it also faces
challenges when it comes to producing the highest efficiency cells.
Nonetheless, the market for printing equipment used in the manufacture of TFPV
cells will grow from around $40 million in 2008 to over $750 million in 2015.
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