Thin Film's Solar Share to Double by 2013
With the price of polysilicon cut by more than half last year, thin-film photovoltaics has lost its edge against crystalline silicon technologies. Nonetheless, its share of the solar panel market is expected to grow from 14% last year to 31% in 2013, according to iSuppli.
Aaron Hand, Editor-in-Chief -- PV Society, 11/10/2009
For some time, analysts have been debating the possible growth of thin-film photovoltaics' popularity, with predictions taking various turns as the fallen price of polysilicon brings thin film's need into question. Although the contract price of polysilicon dropped by >50% last year, market analyst iSuppli Corp. (El Segundo, Calif.) contends that thin-film solar remains a promising market.
Thin-film solar cells are quickly taking market share away from the predominant crystalline technology, according to iSuppli's latest report, with thin film's portion of PV wattage expected to more than double by 2013. Thin-film PV is expected to grow from its 14% in 2008 to 31% of the global solar panel market by 2013, in terms of watts.
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Thin-film solar panels are expected to continue to take market share away from crystalline silicon, growing from 14% in 2008 to 31% in 2013. (Source: iSuppli) |
The key game changer for thin-film prospects has been First Solar Inc. (Tempe, Ariz.), whose low-cost CdTe thin-film technology has taken off in the PV market. The company expects to produce >1 GW of thin-film panels in fiscal 2009.
"The market viability of thin film has been solidly established by First Solar Inc. as it rockets to become the world's top solar panel maker this year, with more than a gigawatt of production," said Greg Sheppard, chief research officer for iSuppli. "At the same time, the company has driven its cost of production to less than 90 cents per watt, keeping its costs at approximately half the level of crystalline module producers."
The average thin-film solar panel price is expected to decline to $1.40 in 2010, down 17.6% from $1.70 this year. Meanwhile, average prices for crystalline panels are expected to drop to $2 in 2010, down 20% from $2.50 this year.
Crystalline prices will continue to close the thin-film pricing gap through 2012, brought on by the dominant companies pouring on capital spending, technology R&D and manufacturing refinements, according to iSuppli. So while thin film's advantage has traditionally been its lower cost of production vs. crystalline's higher conversion efficiency, that is becoming less of a selling point.
Nonetheless, iSuppli expects thin film's place in the market to continue to grow, helped in part by the rising availability of turnkey production lines from companies such as Applied Materials, Oerlikon Solar and Centrotherm.
