INDUSTRY I ANALYSIS
View into the furnace: flat glass production requires plenty of power. Therefore manufacturers aim to use less of this expensive energy. Photo: F-Solar
To Bernhard Dimmler, thin-film expert at the Swabian machine manufacturer Manz, companies are pursuing these expansion plans for a good reason: “CIGS hold great potential.” Dimmler refers to “CIGSfab”, a turn-key production line that Manz has offered since 2010. This 150-MW standard factory, he explains, now makes it possible to produce modules with an average efficiency of 14% and production costs of EUR 0.41, i.e. $ 0.57 per Watt. By 2017 Manz intends to optimise its CIGSfab to such a level that modules with up to 17% efficiency can be produced and production costs can be cut again by at least 10%. “This would give us more than a level playing field with crystalline producers,” says Dimmler.
However, market observers believe the catch-up race for thin- layer modules might prove more difficult than its protagonists assume. “You have to take their optimism with a pinch of salt. The race with competitors from the crystalline silicon segment is far from over,” feels analyst Johannes Bernreuter of Bernreuter Research. The fact is, producers of silicon modules are also keen on making rapid progress. February saw Kyocera from Japan and Ja Solar from China announce the production of multi-crystalline record cells with 18.6 and 19% efficiency. On the module level these new cells allow for over 16% efficiency. Both corporate groups already wanted to start commercial production as early as this summer.
Future innovation
In the revised edition of the International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaics (ITRPV) published in spring, crystalline cell and module producers are outlining approaches for further efficiency increases. According to this information, higher crystal qualities, optimised electrode processes as well as improved charge carrier/conductive emitter and barrier layers can ensure that incident light is used even more efficiently. At the same time, crystalline manufacturers expect production costs to come down even further. On the one hand, these result from material savings in the wake of efficiency increases and on the other from falling production costs with the advent of new processes helping to reduce cutting losses in silicon wafer production and more sensitive processes allowing the processing of ever thinner wafer and grid fingers/bus bars. Experts also see further optimisation potential for solar glass. Today, manufacturers are capable of making glass sheets as thin as 2 millimetres while the PV industry is still using solar glass of four millimetres as its standard. In addition, these sheets are also easier to process further thanks to new coating machines. In future, photovoltaic success will increasingly depend on exploiting cost-cutting potential – and the glass industry and equipment will play a key role here.
©2014 Permission required. Angel Business Communications Ltd.
Issue IV 2014 I
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