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Photovoltaic Industry Overview
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| moderator: Winfried Hoffmann, EPIA
President |
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Future global production capacities, analysis of the
value chain and silicon availability
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| Paula Mints, Navigant Consulting
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Presentation (PDF) |
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Mrs. Mints (Navigant consulting) highlighted
the differences between the nominal PV capacity that
was over 5GW in 2007 and the registered shipments
were about 3GW. This difference is mainly due to the
difficult access to raw material (primarily silicon)
and new production equipment. The contribution of PV
Thin film technologies (mostly CdTe, a-Si and CI(G)S)
is growing with an impressive pace since 2005 and
reached about 12% of the total shipments in 2007.
The rest was dominated by silicon-based technologies
(32% mono-crystalline, 53% poly-crystalline and 3%
of ribbon-string silicon). Regarding silicon
availability, many new players are entering the
market and a total production capacity of 48000MT is
announced for 2010. This will lead to a significant
reduction of average prices for all technologies,
but in particular for thin films. |
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Module technologies
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| Ingo A. Schwirtlich, Schott Solar |
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Presentation (PDF) |
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Total cost of modules was analysed both for c-Si and
thin films technologies by Dr. Schwirtlich
(Schott). While in c-Si modules the cells represent
75% of the total cost and other materials like
glass, frame and junction box represent only 18%,
the situation is very different for thin films: for
a-Si the material represents 64% of the total cost.
The c-Si modules costs are foreseen to go down from
1.84€/Wp in 2007 to less than 1€/Wp in 2015. |
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Balance of System costs
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| Manfred Bächler, Phoenix Solar |
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Presentations (Pdf) |
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Nevertheless, the modules are not the only element
of the system to be analysed and therefore, Mr.
Bächler (Phoenix Solar) presented the balance of
system (BOS) costs. For systems with c-Si modules,
the BOS costs represent 27%, while for systems using
thin film modules, the BOS costs represent almost
half (49%) of the total system costs. Although the
BOS costs are higher for thin film systems than for
c-Si, the potential to reduce these costs is also
higher. |
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Building Integrated Photovoltaic and systems
developments
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| Evert Vlaswinkel, Scheuten Projects |
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Presentations (Pdf) |
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The unique and huge potential of photovoltaics is
due to the fact that it is a, reliable, clean and
silent electricity source, which can be easily
integrated in a decentralized way into urban
environment and built-up areas, while shifting power
generation away from being large-scale and
regionally located. Decentralized PV systems make it
possible to generate electricity where and when it
is more needed, while avoiding the high costs
involved in the extension of the electricity grid. A
few projects on BIPV were presented by Mr.
Vlaswinkel (Scheuten Solar). |
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Reliability of Photovoltaic products
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| moderator: Günther Cramer, EPIA Board
Director |
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Long-term performance of modules
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| Artur Skoczek, JRC |
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Presentation (PDF) |
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Many activities have been developed by the Joint
Research Centre (JRC) of the EC during the
last 25 years to verify the stability and
performance of modules in the long-term. Some
experiments have shown that 82% of modules (for
c-Si) still perform over 80% of the nominal power
after 20 years and therefore, they meet the
manufacturers warranty criteria. An average
degradation rate of 0.7% year can be assumed for
c-Si technologies (without differences between
monocrystalline and poly-crystalline
configurations). Experiments on the field of thin
films are ongoing; however, it is still too early to
estimate their behaviour on the long-term. |
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Product certification of PV modules, Quality
requirements & standards
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| Werner Herrmann, TÜV |
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Presentation (PDF) |
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Dr. Herrmann (TÜV Rheinland)
presented the activities which the European
certification institutes carried out in order to
assure the quality of PV modules. Damp heat and
Thermal cycling are some of the tests required under
the IEC (International Electro technical Committee)
standards in order to qualify modules and secure
long-term performances and stabilities. Experience
in the market has led to the availability of high
quality modules, with over 80% of products passing
successfully those qualification testing. |
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Yield optimisation and monitoring the output of
solar plants over their lifetime
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| Thomas Nordmann, TNC Consulting |
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Presentation (PDF) |
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Mr. Nordmann (TNC Consulting) explained that
although the systems performance is high during its
whole life-time there is still room for improvement.
It is important to note that although PV is a highly
reliable and mature technology there are failures,
like in all industries. It is the role of the PV
industry to show how efficient and quick those
failures can be solved. Therefore, a monitoring
systems will play an important role for failure
identification and cost saving. |
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