NEWS ANALYSIS
Amonix is taking its CPV technology to MENA regions [credit: NREL]
A lot of people in the financial world jumped into the market early to make CPV systems and make money, but this was premature. The industry has seen a lot of consolidation. A year on, Amonix is back with a revamped cheaper module but Garbouishian believes his industry’s biggest challenge is to lower costs further. Cell efficiency is a major factor to driving costs down... and we expect module efficiency to be at 38 percent by 2015, which will reduce system cost drastically
axis trackers in the market and we have also built our own. For us it’s about building this tracker market. We still find that certain emerging markets need education on the benefits of tracking... but in countries like China, we’re seeing opportunities developing.”
Looking back The shift in focus from West to East follows many industry ups and downs. In 2012, just as Amonix ended manufacturing in Nevada and ABB pulled the plug on Greenvolt’s funding, SolFocus was gearing up to provide thousands of systems to a 450 MW project in Baja, California and Soitec and Schneider Electric were installing pilot projects in Morocco.
As Garboushian puts it: “A lot of people in the financial world jumped into the market early to make CPV systems and make money, but this was premature. The industry has seen a lot of consolidation.”
MENA, offer new opportunities to CPV manufacturers, but highlights how Solaria is also looking to China. According to Mehawich, the manufacturer of silicon-based modules has poured vast resources into developing reliable tracking systems and having recently established operations in China, hopes to meet this nation’s rising demand for large-scale solar projects.
As he adds: “Our technology is designed to be compatible with existing single-
A year on, Amonix is back with a revamped cheaper module but Garboushian believes his industry’s biggest challenge is to lower costs further. “Cell efficiency is a major factor to driving costs down... and we expect module efficiency to be at 38 percent by 2015, which will reduce system cost drastically,” he says.
But still the industry need more. As he highlights: “Cost reduction remains a major issue. We now need consolidation of technologies so spot buyers have
access to an orderly and low cost supply chain and we need large-scale manufacturing.”
Garboushian believes its time for ‘big balance’ companies to step into the industry to develop the supply chain and drive manufacturing forward. “We need to get these long-term strategic companies involved rather than having venture capitalists that want to turn this around in a year or two,” he adds. “Amonix has reduced the cost of its new product by 50 percent and is now looking to manufacture it on a very large scale.”
Mehawich agrees with Garbouishian, saying: “It’s all about finding a way to achieve the scale to compete with massive incumbents in the industry.”
But the silicon-based CPV
manufacturer may have a head-start on manufacturability. As Mehawich points out, from word go, Solaria has focused on fitting into the existing supply chain of the silicon PV industry.
“We wanted to go with the flow rather than build a supply chain from scratch,” he says. “So for everything from the back sheet to junction box and cells, we’ve been trying to insert the technology into the supply chain... to achieve scale.”
And as Mehawich highlights, the company has already partnered with industry players that have ‘critical mass in the industry’. “We can get there from a cost standpoint, and so we’re much more competitive,” he says.
August / September 2013
www.compoundsemiconductor.net 19
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