Thin-film PV technology witnessed minimal research activities since early 1980’s. Post this period, it saw a constant advancement, in terms of manufacturing technology and materials used. The pursuit of cost-effective electricity generating technology lured major corporations and investors towards thin-film PV industry, with more than 100 companies entering the market between 2001 and 2009.
Thin-film PV technology has seen a major development leap from only being associated with the little strip of PV cells that power calculators to sophisticated BIPV or solar charges for mobile devices. From a mere 14 MW production in 2001 the market has grown to reach 2141 MW in 2009, at a CAGR of 58%.
According to GBI Research, the market outlook for the coming decade appears promising as the major thin-film producing countries - Japan, China, and the US - are announcing aggressive support for renewable energy expansion through incentives and regulations. Thin-film module production is projected to grow at a rate of 24% from 2009 to reach 22,214 MW production by 2020.
Over the last few years, this technology has also been successful in grabbing a growing share of the PV market, rising from a mere 2.8% in 2001 to 25% in 2009, thus dictating a growing share in the coming future. GBI Research predicts that thin-film is set to increase its share to ~38% by 2020. “Expectations are that in the long-term, thin-film solar PV technology would surpass dominating conventional solar PV technology, thus enabling the long sought-after grid parity objective,” says the report’s authors.
CIGS – The future market leader
CIGS technology is getting more popular than other thin-film technologies due to its higher efficiency and reduced manufacturing costs. The success of CIGS cells depends on a more efficient, and faster and cheaper manufacturing process. The future of CIGS technology is encouraging as many venture capitalists are investing in this technology, with investments in excess of $2 billion to date.
“CIGS will most likely be the face of thin-film solar PV technology in the future,” claims GBI Research. The technology’s value proposition is that it offers, the combined advantages of both c-Si – which gives relatively good efficiency – and thin-film PV technologies, which claim potential advantages on cost, flexibility, weight, and manufacturability. From 2010, CIGS segment is expected to capture the maximum share in the thin-film module market as most of the CIGS manufacturers will begin to attain production cost and conversion efficiencies on par with other thin-film technologies especially Cdte.
With over 160 companies producing thin-film solar cells and modules worldwide, the market includes a number of big players with many years of experience and expanding production capacities (First Solar, Kaneka, Mitsubishi, United Solar etc.). There are also a handful of newcomers, a small number of which have the potential to develop into significant players. Many of these companies are ‘pure players’, but a lot of companies already that are established in silicon technology are also attempting to enter the thin-film technology market. Many manufacturers (such as Sharp, ErSol and Q-Cells) see the expansion of their thin-film activities as a type of hedging to their existing technology portfolio, while others are dedicated solely to this technology (e.g. Würth Solar, Kaneka, First Solar and Shell). Thus, with the increasing number of manufacturers focusing on this market would eventually lead to major growth in the near future.
Low efficiency still a significant inhibitor
Due to the low efficiency levels of the thin-film technologies, their cost effectiveness is not competitive at present. Therefore, competing with electricity cost generated through conventional sources of energy is currently not possible for thin-film technology manufacturers. This has led to uncertainty in technology demand going forward into the future. Coupled with this, capital constraints due to global financial crunch, has led banks and manufacturers, to shy away from financing thin-film technology in favour of more mature and abundant crystalline silicon modules for projects in 2009, which may continue in the coming future, resulting in narrowing the thin-film expansion. The production numbers for CIGS are expected to change significantly going forward as new entrants plan to begin the production ramp-up, coupled with extensive investment inflow in this segment.
For additional information:
Thin-film Photovoltaic (PV) Cells Market Analysis to 2020
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