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Global Solar Photovoltaic Cell (SPVC) Industry
Scope eKnowledge Center Pvt Ltd, July 2009, Pages: 50
Rising energy and oil prices in light of the economic slowdown, and a heightened awareness of the environment, have led to an increase in global incentives for the diversification of energy sources and greater utilization of renewable energy segments. In this context, one of the important renewable energy segments is solar power, which at present is witnessing a stupendous growth in installed base as well as a doubling of demand.
The total installed capacity for solar photovoltaic cells (SPVC) in the moderate scenario (as outlined by GreenPeace), wherein commitment from country governments is assumed to continue albeit at a low level, is expected to exceed 5,200 MW by 2010. Developing economies such as China, India and Taiwan are expected to contribute the maximum to this capacity addition. However, there is some risk of the utilization levels plummeting in the event of incentives being discontinued or reduced, given that capacity already exceeds demand and heavy initial investments can deter demand.
High competition and achieving cost effectiveness through innovation are the broad characteristics of the SPVC industry. At the end of 2008, there were more than 150 manufacturers of solar cells and modules, in the global SPVC industry. Companies such as Q-Cells, Sharp and Kyocera are major participants in the industry and the top 10 players in the industry account for over half of its production. Competition is also equally rife between crystalline silicon solar cell manufacturers and thin film solar module manufacturers. Thin-film technology is expected to dominate the production of SPVCs in the coming years, judging by the cost advantages and increasing acceptance levels. From the demand perspective, most of the consumption of SPVC came from Europe in 2008 with Spain and Germany being the largest consumers.
Government initiatives have been the major growth drivers as well as responsible for driving investments in the field. Notable among these is the German Feed-in Law introduced in 1999, driving photovoltaic system installations in Europe. The Japanese government has encouraged technology development in the area of SPVC to combat the shortage of natural conventional energy sources. Despite the lack of uniform incentives for the implementation of solar PV systems in the US, the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has begun to offer performance-based incentives since 2007.
Propelled by such initiatives, large players have focused on research and development activities to capitalize on the favorable politico-economic conditions that will drive growth in the SPVC market in the future. For example, First Solar spent $33.5 million towards research and development in 2008, which is approximately twice the amount spent in the previous year while SunTech spent $15.3 million in 2008. Owners of technology in the SPVC area are also key stakeholders in this industry as their intense research activity during this boom period is aimed at monetizing their technologies by licensing them to participants in the SPVC industry and seek benefits from this favorable market trend.
In line with this trend, patenting activity in terms of number of patents/applications filed under the SPVC technology, across geographies viz. US, EP and JP, during the period 2003-2008 has been high. A family analysis on these patents/applications showed that they account to 7,854 distinct patent families (inventions), a majority of which was first-filed within the analysis period (2003-2008), while the patenting activity of the remaining started early in the period 1991-2002.
Of the analyzed patent filings, Japan had the highest number of patent filings, closely followed by the US. Japan had the highest number of patent filings among the three geographic regions, from 2003 until 2006, after which the US has emerged as the leader. However, of the total patent filings made in EP, less than 15% were first filed in EP. Most patents were first-filed in Japan. In contrast, out of the total SPVC related patent filings made in Japan, a vast majority was first filed in Japan itself. Japan had a substantial level of dominance in US patent filings too, where more than 25% of the patents filed in US, were first filed in Japan.
An analysis on the assignees holding the patent families identified Sharp Corp, Kyocera Corp, Sanyo Electric Co Ltd. and Canon Inc. as dominating patenting players. These four companies proved their dominating presence not only in the home ground (Japan) but also in the US and EP.
Although subsidies and incentives have created some large solar-based electric power installations, the true potential for large solar-based electric power installations has not been fully realized. Inventors are on road to launching light, low-cost thin film growth techniques, innovative cell structures and simplified process flows, which are expected to drive efficiencies higher while lowering overall solar cell and module manufacturing costs. This can be evidenced from the patent filing activity which shows that more inventions are filed in Third and Fourth Generation solar cells rather than the conventional First and Second generation solar cells.
A study of the patents reveals that over the next five years, solar cell wafer thickness reduction to less than 200 micron wafers and a long-term assumed price of about $20/kg for solar-grade polysilicon is possible, and this may reduce the polysilicon feedstock cost (in g/Wp) by about a factor of four to eight to about $0.10/Wp to $0.20/Wp. Thus, ongoing technological investments and ensuing developments will enable solar cell manufacturers to use novel solar cell designs that can vastly reduce their manufacturing cost and increase their ease of installation.
Overall, the patenting activity indicates that the ultimate goal of the SPVC industry - becoming cost competitive compared to the traditional electricity generation techniques without the current incentives – may indeed be achieved. At present, incentives are the key drivers of growth in the global solar energy industry. Incentives encourage corporations and local governments to utilize more solar power by increasing investments in solar technologies. Such investments ultimately boost the sales of solar power related products, thereby motivating producers to achieve a manufacturing scale that would otherwise be considered impractical, if the demand was insufficient. With more cost-effective technologies coming to the fore, players are likely to be in a position to offer SPVC solutions to customers with lower level of initial investments, and drive further market growth in the years to come.
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