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PV Innovation in North America
Greentech Media, Inc., Dec 2008
The $50 billion global PV industry is fast approaching a critical juncture in its history. Buoyed by climate change, national security concerns and slowing productivity in traditional, fossil fuel-based power generation, PV has emerged over the last 20 years as an economically and environmentally sustainable source of energy. However, the global recession, tightening credit markets and slow integration into the global power sector presage at least two years of difficulty for the majority of players in the PV industry. Despite these pressures, one constant force remains a primary driver of growth in this important and dynamic market — technological innovation.
Among the things that are critical for making sound investments and planning decisions in this difficult financial environment include: understanding how incumbent PV technologies will affect cost curves, learning what hot new technologies are emerging to disrupt established players, and considering how end users are incorporating new and up-and-coming PV technologies into their power-generation portfolios and daily lives. Greentech Media and the Prometheus Institute for Sustainable Development’s latest industry-leading report, PV Innovation in North America, analyzes these critical technology issues within the context of the dynamic North American PV market. Most importantly, this report highlights the ways in which North American-based technological innovation will contribute to make this the world’s leading PV market.
This report’s key findings are:
- Small, entrepreneur-driven PV companies are the dominant force in the North American PV market. There are more PV technology developers in North America than in Europe and Asia combined, and these companies are rapidly developing the newest generation of innovative PV technologies.
- North America’s two dominant firms, First Solar and SunPower, began as small, entrepreneur-driven companies whose technologies are unparalleled worldwide in terms of cost and performance. These two companies are the yardstick by which success among North American PV companies is measured.
- Unlike the majority of European and Japanese PV companies, North American PV companies emerged largely independent of government support. As a political climate favorable toward renewable energy takes hold in the United States, government support combined with traditional sources of private capital will engender industry growth unseen in other leading global PV markets.
- Tightening credit markets and higher costs of capital will slow demand for PV installations in established markets. Recessions, however, historically are potent times for research, development and innovation, which require little in the way of project finance. North America’s small, entrepreneur-driven PV companies stand to emerge well-positioned globally following the resetting of credit markets in 18 to 24 months.
- The North American PV industry as a whole represents a strongly diversified technology portfolio, with firms developing x-Si, thin-film, concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) and third-generation organic and nano-scale PV technologies. No other global market has as much technological diversity and, as such, North American firms will likely emerge as the commercial leaders in each of these important technology verticals.
- Though the expected shakeout in the PV industry, combined with the global recession, will result in the failure of many PV companies, those that exhibit significant technological differentiation in terms of cost, performance or application are likely to succeed. The majority of technologically differentiated firms are located in North America.
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