The Future of Photovoltaics Manufacturing in the United States Summary of Two Symposia (2011) / Chapter Skim
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Panel I: Partnering for Photovoltaic Technologies
Panel I: Partnering for Photovoltaic Technologies
Pages 132-144
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From page 132... ...
economy best be reversed so as to ensure our economic competitiveness? "The great power of solar energy," she said, "is that it provides elegant solutions to each of these three critical problems." It addresses energy independence, she said, by reducing the nation's use of foreign energy; it helps stabilize the climate by producing power without increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; and it promises to contribute to economic competitiveness by creating new jobs in solar-related industries.
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From page 133... ...
The American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy has an annual budget of $45 million. For renewable sources of energy, the wind power lobby spent some $1.6 million in the first quarter, and SEIA, the solar energy lobbying effort, spent $410,000.
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From page 134... ...
Further illustrating the potential of thin-film panels, he also displayed a photo of the "Zephyr airship," which had set a record for the longest flight in the stratosphere powered by solar energy. Uni-Solar, he said, wholly owned by Energy Conversion Devices, is the world's largest manufacturer of flexible solar cells.
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From page 135... ...
The remarkable growth in the last three years, he said, was the product of feed-in tariffs and other incentives offered outside the United States. Of the 5,000 MW worldwide solar market in 2008, he said, just over 300 MW was sold in the United States; Germany, helped by the feed-in tariffs, sold six times that amount.
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From page 136... ...
We want to reach grid parity, and we have shown that we can make progress toward that goal." The way to reduce the cost of PV, he said, is to work with the entire PV value chain. "You make the solar cell, then you make the module, which is interconnected solar cells; then the PV array, for which you need inverters and other components to convert the DC solar electricity to AC current.
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From page 137... ...
David Eaglesham First Solar Dr. Eaglesham said he would give the industry's perspective on both current and anticipated future conditions for photovoltaic technologies.
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From page 138... ...
multiple This is a fairly significant contributionR01568 even at today's scale." He began with a skeptical assessment of various goals that had been suggested for solar and other renewable sources of electricity, such as a global capacity of 5 terawatts for renewable sources by 2020, projected by the International Panel on Climate Change. "Think about the growth rate you would need to get even close to that goal.
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From page 139... ...
It's a key piece of why you want to stick with things that leverage existing production platforms." He illustrated the company's increasing module conversion efficiencies with a graph showing a rapid rise in efficiency from 7 percent in 2002 to about 11 percent at present. (See Figure 3 on Increasing Module Conversion Efficiencies.)
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From page 140... ...
For other sources of energy, including coal, gas combined, and nuclear, the crossing point might be around 15 cents/kWh, depending on the number of sunny days per year, a price placed on carbon emissions, the cost of capital, and other factors. A critical variable, he said, stems from the value proposition inherent in all forms of renewable energy: that the consumer must pay up front for the entire system -- in return for free energy for the lifetime of the system.
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From page 141... ...
Dr. Eaglesham noted that other governments, notably the European Union, China, India, and Australia, have all taken signifi cant steps to encourage PV and other renewable energy development.
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From page 142... ...
Other needs include incentives and loan guarantees at the utility level; demonstration-scale electricity storage programs; and nonblocking intellectual property provisions for basic research. • DoE's support for PV should be sustained from a technologically agnostic stance, implementing programs without picking winners.
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From page 143... ...
"But I think there's enormous opportunity for research in materials physics and the device physics of existing architectures. In the same way, the semiconductor industry did a lot of great basic research to understand its basic materials phenomena.
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From page 144... ...
He said that some research on basic device models is common to different firms, such as optical modeling, as are areas of total cost of ownership analysis. But it is still difficult to find common themes in precommercial research, he said, "because this industry is still burgeoning many directions, which is a strength as well as a weakness." Dr.
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