Solar Fab Watch
Drawing on his company’s Solar Watch database of global solar cell manufacturers, Scotten Jones, president of IC Knowledge, provides insight into the trends in solar fabs around the world.
Utilization Effects on Profitability for Solar Cell Manufacturers
In my first entry in this blog, I noted that the rapid buildup of solar capacity over the last several years has led to utilization levels of 50% for 2007 and 64% for 2008, with our forecast for 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 at 41%, 40%, 48% and 65%, respectively. Since that first entry, we have added additional companies to our database as well as making other updates based on newer information. We c ...... Read More
Comments (2)Solar Cell Technology Trends
The vast majority of solar cells manufactured to date have leveraged the huge investment made by the semiconductor industry in silicon wafer processing technology. Either monocrystalline or multicrystalline wafers (bulk silicon) cut to 125mm x 125mm or 156mm x 156mm in size represented 85% of installed solar cell manufacturing capacity in 2008 (there are also some bulk silicon cells produced as ri ...... Read More
Comments (6)Waiting for Better Solar Alignment
Welcome to the first entry in the Solar Fab Watch Blog!It should be no surprise to readers of this blog that there is a worldwide energy crisis! According to the UN, worldwide energy demand is forecast to increase 60% between 2002 and 2030 driven by emerging economic powers such as China. The incumbent energy sources such as coal, oil and natural gas are all constrained by finite supplies and cont ...... Read More
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