INDUSTRY CPV
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Q A Who are the big players in the CPV industry today?
Soitec is leading the way in terms of deployment. There have been several announcements of the large system that it is going ahead with in Africa.
There are also a number of other companies that are still active and really pushing their technology and their product. That’s the likes of Semprius, Amonix still to a certain extent; and at the solar cell level, Emcore and Solar Junction.
Why have some companies in this industry, such as GreenVolts and SolFocus, folded in the last year or so?
In any space that is largely populated by start-up companies, it is never the case that all of the start-ups finally make it to be established companies in an established market. And the cost reductions in the silicon PV industry, which was ultimately one of the competing alternatives to CPV, made it incredibly difficult for CPV to compete in its target market. But we still believe that CPV is competitive, and can be a more attractive option in certain conditions and certain regions.
I presume the tough global economic conditions must have also made it hard for CPV companies to survive, let alone thrive?
CPV companies rely heavily on financing and in today’s climate financing is difficult to secure for any technology. Choosing where you are investing and where you are lending money − especially given all the press regarding dumping and the rate at which prices have fallen − has made investors very wary of investing in any PV technology, let alone a start-up of that kind of ilk.
Over the last few years, there have been several announcements of massive CPV projects, such as Soitec’s contract to supply 305 MW to San Diego County. Have these projects fallen by the wayside, or are they underway?
The PV industry is renowned for announcements of projects that may never happen. I remember when China first announced an incentive and there started to be a domestic market for PV in China: First Solar signed an MoU for a multi-GW plant in Inner Mongolia. That never happened, and that was probably four years ago.
The very first MoU is so far away from actually getting these projects developed and built. Some projects go ahead the whole way, and they turn into what they claimed they would be. But some never get past that very first contract because of a number of other issues, such as grid connections and financing. So many things can potentially hold up a project.
Other projects may go ahead in a much smaller version of what they claimed they were going to be. That’s probably the case with the large majority of these CPV projects. They will possibly go ahead in some format. However, I have some doubt about whether they will go ahead in the full capacity that once was claimed.
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How many megawatts of CPV has now been installed around the globe?
At the end of 2012, we estimated that it was around 150 MW installed in total. That’s for high and low concentration, and includes silicon CPV. The large majority of CPV is in the US.
In these locations, are there incentives for green technology?
Right now in the US it’s utility driven, signing PPAs
[Power Purchase Agreements] and so on. So it’s not so much an incentive. But obviously the utilities there are required to meet certain renewables commitments, and so it is indirectly incentivised in that way.
In most other countries where CPV is deployed, it’s taking advantage of some kind of feed-in tariff, or some sort of PV incentive. There are some countries where they get an additional bonus − or there is some slightly different structure − for CPV compared to PV.
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Can CPV make a big impact in rural locations?
It is already being used there. We do see a huge market for off-grid PV in general, and CPV could definitely fit into that.
Your question relates a little bit to storage. We have found that in those rural locations, the lead-acid storage battery is a huge part of that market at the moment. Over the next few years we will start to see some other new technologies, such as lithium ion and flow batteries come into that market as well. There is also a technology, sodium nickel chloride, which is from Fiam and GE. That’s got a lot of great properties for rural, off-grid use.
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How do you expect CPV deployment to evolve in the next five years, and what factors will determine its success?
We forecast strong growth for CPV. Obviously, it has hit a bit of a stumbling block in the last few years with the condition of its supplier base and a number of really, really strong challengers for the suppliers that are involved, but we see it growing to reach close to 1 GW in 2016. That’s driven by strong activity in developing regions for PV: places like the Middle East, South Africa, and also a lot of activity in China.
July 2013
www.compoundsemiconductor.net 27
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