THINFILM
maximum efficiency stands at only 11.1 per cent at
present. They will therefore need a greater surface
area in order to generate the same amount of
electricity as silicon cells marketed at present. A
part of the gain in lower manufacturing costs will
be eaten up by higher installing charges.
But First Solar’s achievement is still considered to
Issue V 2009
be a milestone on the way to making solar-
generated electricity competitive. Experts had
expected this network grid parity for Germany
for 2015 at the very earliest. From then onwards,
solar energy would no longer be more expensive
than traditionally-produced electricity coming
out of a socket in the wall. As Mr. Holger Krawinkel,
-pv-management.com an energy expert at Germany’s
Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband e. V., noted
.solar
this most recent progress brought grid parity into
www
High-level automation: would put all other solar energy technology in the the foreseeable future: “First Solar modules may
Robots play a major shade. But at present they merely manage to score already generate electricity at € 0.20 to € 0.25 per
32
part in thin-film module efficiencies of around 9 per cent and they are kilowatt hour”, the expert said. In Germany,
production about three times as expensive to make. electricity prices now stand at about € 0.20 per
(Source: Inventux) kilowatt hour.
Double the market share by 2010
But CIS, thin-film silicon and related devices, are
just preparing for a major leap in development. In First Solar sets the tune
the words of Mr. Arnulf Jaeger-Waldau, an energy First Solar set the benchmark as far as cost is
specialist working for the European Commission: concerned. Other thin-film module makers which
“At present some 200 companies are making thin- will be unable to rapidly follow suit or which do not
film modules or they are working on them”. This bring down systems costs on account of higher
leads the European PhotoVoltaics Industry efficiencies, will be unable to keep their share of
Association (EPIA) to expect that manufacturing the market. Added to this, makers of traditional
capacities for these technologies will double to crystalline technologies have continuously lowered
over 4 gigawatt by 2010 – representing a market their cost by increasing mass-manufacture and
share of around 20 per cent. technological improvement. Thin-film technology
competitors, therefore, are very ambitious now. In
At the same time, new manufacturing technologies April 2009, Abound Solar from Fort Collins,
and advances in automation make for ever more Colorado, launched its CeTe module production
efficient production. Mass production and and the company wants to bring down the price of
technological progress bring down costs and raise one watt on its 35 megawatt line to USD 1, the
market chances. Many of these innovative equivalent of € 0.72. Pascal Noronha, its founder
production processes shall be on demonstration at and President of the Board, said that costs of
the solarpeq International Trade Fair for Solar around USD 0.90 (about € 0.65) per watt at a
Production Equipment in Düsseldorf from 28 capacity of 200 MW are envisaged already for
September to 1 October 2010. 2010.
The successes achieved by First Solar, a US-based The Berlin-based Inventux company also intends to
manufacturer of cadmium telluride (CdTe) modules score costs of below USD 1 rapidly. This firm has
have kept the confidence of thin-film firms up. made so-called micro-morphous silicon modules
Based on information made available by their since late 2008. This technology represents a
company, the Americans by now produce one watt development based on the thin-film panels made
of electricity at about USD 0.93 (or about € 0.67). of ordinary amorphous silicon marketed at present.
There is no other company achieving this. But the By depositing an additional absorber layer made of
disadvantage of these CdTe solar units is that their micro crystalline silicon on the amorphous layer,
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