The Future of Photovoltaics Manufacturing in the United States Summary of Two Symposia (2011) / Chapter Skim
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Panel I: Opportunities and Challenges Facing PV Manufacturing in the United States
Panel I: Opportunities and Challenges Facing PV Manufacturing in the United States
Pages 44-58
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From page 44... ...
This goal, he said, was backed up by elements of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: • A grant program, in lieu of the tax credits, where beneficial; • Expansion of the DoE's loan guarantee program; • Improvements to the investment tax credit and establishment of a new manufacturing product credit for solar, PV, and other renewable manufacturing. Noting the "incredible progress that's been made in the solar PV industry," including an increase in domestic PV production capacity by over 50 percent 44
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From page 45... ...
Eschewing standard crystalline silicon modules, First Solar adopted a lower-cost thin-film technique using cadmium-telluride solar cells. This proved to be a difficult process to master, and the company needed six years to reach steady-state production with its first manufacturing line.
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From page 46... ...
With increasing productivity extended into the supply chain and factory replication, the company has been able to accelerate the construction time and ramp-up time for a new factory from 12 months and 18 months respectively to beginning construction of a new factory every three months and a ramping-up cycle much shorter than 18 months. To do this, he said, required bringing along the whole supply chain: equipment suppliers, raw materials suppliers, engineering procurement, and construction.
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From page 47... ...
The United States has less than 10 percent of global demand and "has not been a factor," he said.5 The rapid progress in solar technologies in Europe was initially spurred by governments' use of the feed-in tariff.6 This guarantees that anyone who generates solar power can sell that power at favorable rates to the national electrical grid without special permissions or relationships to the local utilities. Thus producers are typically able to count on a market with predictable price points over a known number of years.
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From page 48... ...
He also noted that almost every state in the United States offers solar incentives of some type -- such as a 30 percent income tax incentive -- which appear to constitute significant support. And yet a tax incentive may not be sufficient in the absence of strong local and global demand.
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From page 49... ...
Ahearn said that policies aimed at increasing manufacturing capacity would not drive a sustainable industry unless they strengthened market demand. "Market demand doesn't increase by itself," he said.
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From page 50... ...
He called the technologies that have come out of U.S. universities and labs "pretty impressive." He said that NREL, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, had been instrumental in First Solar's technology development through the thin-film partnership.
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From page 51... ...
This would provide selective benefits to the exclusion of real market opportunity, and it would leave many companies on the sidelines that could otherwise participate with private sector money. Once the first manufacturing line is working and the product can be vetted, the need for capital grows quickly and the company needs access to the billions of dollars available only from the capital markets.
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From page 52... ...
"The basic message of my presentation," he said, "is that if we want to have manufacturing in the United States, the United States has to be a market leader." Mr. Swanson then showed photos of several kinds of SunPower installations: the Sunset Home, in Silicon Valley, CA, a 4-kW SunPower Solar Electric System; the 904 kW roof on the FedEx Express Oakland, CA hub; the U.S.
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From page 53... ...
Regional MODCOs SunPower hopes to reduce the labor cost of the solar panel stage by further automation, which is now being developed. This is an exciting development for SunPower, Mr.
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From page 54... ...
Dow Corning is one of the first joint ventures created in the United States, founded by Dow Chemical and Corning in 1943 to explore the potential of the silicon atom, which it still does today. And the silicon atom plays an essential role in the solar PV industry, either as a semiconductor material or a material used in other parts of the value chain.
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From page 55... ...
One reason Dow Corning chose to make that investment in the United States is that the level of technology is high, trade secrecy must be preserved, and it allows huge integration benefits with Dow Corning silicon plants. "That is helping us have a world-class cost structure here," Peeters said.
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From page 56... ...
This is not limited to the chemical and electronics levels in producing solar cells or modules, but requires • Increased throughput or yield through automation and process innovation; • Lowering of capital investment by means of process optimization and innovation; and • Reduced labor with better management. The third pillar, he said, is raw material conversion efficiency.
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From page 57... ...
Clearly, he said, the federal government has a leading role in stimulating demand and "making America a 21st–century solar power." Obvious federal policies to promote demand for solar include federal tax incentives, formulation of national renewable energy
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From page 58... ...
He cited market projections that estimate about 5 GW of capacity in 3 years, which equals today's global market. That market, he said, will be filled principally by today's technology of crystalline silicon, which today has a manufacturing capacity of a few hundred MW.
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