Solar ♦ news digest
“There was a lot of buzz over CIGS PV that began to develop in 2009 and grew into 2010,” states Djokovich. “But with the rapid decline in silicon pricing, many companies focused on producing products to compete with silicon module assemblers have either closed or sold out.”
“XsunX took a different approach with CIGSolar. Rather than develop a product that attempts to compete with assemblers of silicon solar modules, which is a business path that has seen the demise of numerous thin film companies such as Solyndra, XsunX’s CIGSolar is designed to offer pre-existing silicon module assemblers a lower cost replacement to silicon.”
“Our business objective is to leverage the many GW of existing assembly capacity in the market - not compete with it. Now it appears that the flexibility of our stainless steel substrates may also offer an alternative cell for BIPV assemblers as well. At this time, we are pleased to find interest in our CIGSolar technology coming from multiple areas in the solar market,” concludes Djokovich.
Photovoltaic module shipments swell in Q4 2012
Despite this positive sign the situation of the global PV industry remains critical and a substantial recovery of the supply-demand balance is not expected to occur before the second half of 2013
After a disastrous third quarter of 2012 featuring extremely low factory utilisation rates across the entire photovoltaic (PV) supply chain, a surge in demand was seen in the final quarter of the year for PV modules.
A new PV module shipment record of 11 gigawatts (GW) was reached in the fourth quarter according to the IHS Solar Integrated Market Tracker from information and analytics provider IHS.
The third quarter of 2012 dealt another blow to the global photovoltaic industry. After a relatively strong second quarter resulting in global installations of 7.8 GW, markets softened again. “Installations in the third quarter amounted to just 7.5 GW. Wholesalers, EPCs, and PV suppliers were forced to carefully control their inventory levels due to falling prices
and low shipment levels and production cuts were the consequence,” comments Principal Analyst Stefan de Haan.
In the third quarter of 2012, average module capacity utilisation fell to 49 percent, cell capacity utilisation to 56 percent, wafer capacity utilisation to a record-low 55 percent, and polysilicon capacity utilisation to 63 percent. In parallel, prices continued their slide in the third quarter of 2012 resulting in module industry revenues of only $6 billion - the lowest value since the second quarter of 2009. These difficult conditions were reflected in an increasing number of suppliers exiting the market.
“In the fourth quarter of 2012 global PV markets rebounded sharply. Very strong demand from Asia, with the surge driven largely by China and Japan, helped to compensate for sluggish demand in Europe. IHS estimates that global PV installations were 10.1 GW in the fourth quarter of 2012. In particular leading Chinese module suppliers benefited from the uptick in demand and shipped much more than previously expected,” points out de Haan.
In total, 11 GW of global module shipments are estimated for the fourth quarter of 2012 - a new record for the industry. As anticipated by IHS, average market pricing for crystalline modules declined to $0.65 per watt at the end of 2012, down from $0.70 at the end of September.
Importantly, however, the price decline lost momentum in the course of the fourth quarter. Towards the end of the year some module prices even increased. Record-level shipments paired with stabilising prices drove a profound recovery of revenues. According to the IHS Solar Integrated Market Tracker, fourth quarter 2012 module revenues grew by a stunning 42 percent quarter- over-quarter, reaching $8.5 billion.
In the first quarter of 2013 suppliers are predicted to experience the usual seasonal weakness of global solar markets. Global PV installations are forecast to drop to 6.7 GW in this quarter. As a result upstream shipments and revenues will temporarily come under pressure again.
With prices forecast to decrease by another 4 -5 percent in the first quarter of 2013 (compared to the fourth quarter of 2012), module revenues will fall
January/February 2013
www.compoundsemiconductor.net 161
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220 |
Page 221 |
Page 222 |
Page 223 |
Page 224 |
Page 225 |
Page 226 |
Page 227 |
Page 228 |
Page 229 |
Page 230 |
Page 231 |
Page 232 |
Page 233