Summary
Is reported in an article published on 1st June by the Greentech Media that, arising out of the excess installed capacity with manufacturers vis demand for solar cells, and the rapidly falling prices of silicon in the world market, amorphous silicon thin film players aren't only competing with crystalline silicon panel makers, they also must beat those making other thin-film panels but are using different semiconductor materials, which are key ingredients for converting sunlight into electricity. The same problem faced by amorphous silicon solar players also could plague other thin-film technology developers, such as those making panels with copper, indium, gallium and selenium (CIGS). CIGS do not seem to have the right cost structure. Companies that are using mirrors to concentrate the sunlight onto slivers of solar cells – an approach that also sounded promising during the polysilicon shortage – faces the same challenge.
Analysis
Excess supply of polycrustalline silicon and low demand in the last one year has posed serious challenges to manufacturers of thin film silicon amorphous based solar cells.
Commercial cadmium-telluride panels can convert more of the sunlight that hits them into electricity than amorphous silicon panels on the market today. First Solar panels have nearly 11 percent efficiency, while amorphous silicon panels fall somewhere between 6 percent to 9 percent.
Both Applied and Oerlikon have developed two types of equipment for making amorphous-silicon cells. The first and older type makes cells with one layer of amorphous silicon, a technology commonly called "single junction”.
Oerlikon claims that panels made with its tandem junction technology, which has one layer of amorphous and one layer of crystalline silicon can achieve 9.3 percent efficiency. While its single junction technology can produce panels with 7 percent efficiency.
Applied estimates that the cost of producing panels using its tandem junction technology is roughly $1.50 per watt now. It expects the cost to drop to $1.20 per watt in 2009 at a factory running at near-full capacity. The company has six publicly known customers so far, including Signet. Applied expects all of them to start commercial production by the end of 2009.
First Solar already said it could produce panels at 0.93 per watt. Amorphous silicon panel makers, on the other hand, say they could get the production costs down to $1.50 per watt in the best-case scenario. But that production cost is close to the selling prices of First Solar's cadmium-telluride panels, which are likely going for around $1.70 to $1.80 per watt, he noted.
Companies, such as Signet Solar in the United States, Sun Well Solar in Taiwan, Moser Baer in India and T-Solar in Spain, have opted to start with the first-generation technology that makes use of just one layer of amorphous silicon. This type of panels has roughly 6 percent efficiency. These companies began production over the past year. However Signet is switching to a more advanced set of equipment from Applied in 2009, and it expects to increase the efficiency to 9 percent
Both Sunfilm and Sontor have been developing the second-generation amorphous silicon technology that produces solar cells with a layer of amorphous silicon and a layer of crystalline silicon to boost power generation. Sunfilm, founded in 2006, the same year Q-Cells started Sontor, has begun mass-producing this type of solar panels, which could convert up to 8 percent of sunlight that hits the cells in it into electricity.
All thin-film makers are gunning for a market currently dominated by makers of crystalline silicon panels. Although thin films can be made more cheaply, they are a lot less efficient at converting sunlight into electricity than thin films.
The competition between crystalline silicon and thin-film factions will heat up. The prices for polysilicon are falling, leading to a lowering of crystalline silicon panel prices as well.
Amorphous silicon panels are sold for roughly $2.50 per watt today, compared with $3 to $3.50 per watt for crystalline silicon panel. Despite cheaper prices, amorphous-silicon panels are not as efficient at generating electricity.
San Jose, California based SunPower, and Japan based Sharp on the other hand, are making crystalline silicon panels with an 18 percent efficiency.
In a market plagued by excess supply, the low-efficiency a-Si has to sell at lower prices per Watt vs the 11%-efficient First Solar’s CdTe to compensate for the 20c or so higher balance-of-system costs. Unfortunately, that means a-Si will have to sell at gross break-even at best, meaning operating losses.
