Archive for the ‘Solar Manufacturing’ Category

With the collapse of publicly traded solar stocks in the last 4 months, the general business press has been buzzing with speculation about mergers and acquisitions. But these articles have missed some basic industry drivers and circumstances that may point to minimal M&A activity. A good example includes a recent Bloomberg article about how First Solar is a take over target for GE and Siemens as FSLR’s share price has fallen from $156 in Q1 2011 to $36 today losing enormous value.

First Solar - M&A Target?

While I have tremendous respect for what FSLR has accomplished and believe that high performance thin-film will be a factor at some point in the longer term, rapidly changing market dynamics have caught up with the company.  Manufactured costs of crystalline silicon PV modules have dropped much more rapidly than thin-film as a category or FSLR could match.  Indeed, FSLR’s stated guidance was to decrease manufacturing cost by $0.05 per Watt during the last 18 months compared to a $0.20 – $0.35 per Watt decrease by a variety of crystalline providers.

Solar thin-film as a general category is lower in efficiency, which requires more land/space, balance of systems (inverters, racking, wiring, permitting, administration) and as such, requires a module sale price differential from a crystalline module of approximately 30% to remain competitive. Currently the delta between the 2 module technology types is only 6% – 10% in the spot and long-term contract markets respectively.

The thin-film business model as a general category in the current environment is broken. (exception may be Solar Frontier) While First Solar has their downstream project development and EPC capability glossing over the module manufacturing cost problem, this will continue to be a problem for the foreseeable future. And with behemoths like Samsung, LG, Hyundai and now Foxconn about to enter the market with aggressive low cost capabilities and significant resources, the pace of cost reductions will continue.

I would be more than surprised if GE (especially since GE has its own thin-film effort with an integrated BOS approach) or Siemens or similar entities would buy FSLR with the current market dynamics in play. If the price becomes low enough, they may have interest in FSLR’s substantial project pipeline but that would need to be significantly lower than the current $36 price.

Overall, acquisitions in the PV module manufacturing industry don’t make much sense even at the current low valuations unless there is valuable IP present or there is a substantial project pipeline as a result of downstream integration. This is because the barriers to market entry are quite low. Manufacturing equipment used throughout the supply chain is generally American and European made off-the-shelf production machines with willing and able companies such as Applied Materials ready to supply. Additionally, most Asian solar manufacturers have no brand value established worth purchasing. Foxcon’s entry in the PV industry is a good example where no existing company or capacity was purchased, opting instead for the latest, highest efficiency manufacturing platforms available while partnering with an existing Chinese poly silicon company for raw material supply.

After a recent presentation during a government renewable energy conference, I received a number of questions regarding why there was such a large difference between crystalline solar cell efficiency and a fully packaged and weatherized module. For instance, a 19% efficient crystalline photovoltaic (PV) cell, when packaged into a module with 60 cells results in a panel that is roughly 15% – 16.5% efficient depending on the manufacturer. According to the NREL, the cell to module loss is in the 11% – 17% range for most manufacturers.

Solar Module Packaging

The losses are a result of three distinct issues. 1) physical layout of the PV module and framing,  2) optical loss from encapsulation and glass, and 3) series loss from cell connections

The physical layout of the module affects the efficiency by having a large inactive area, meaning the space between cells, the edge of the module and width of the frame. The larger the inactive area of a module, the lower the efficiency.

The optical loss is a less straightforward problem and has a number of challenges resulting from the top glass and the encapsulation film.

The top glass needs to have low reflectivity so the maximum amount of solar radiation reaches the solar cells. The glass choice has to balance a number of factors including thickness, to meet hailstorm impact rating; tempering, to meet safety standards; and optical clarity, for maximum radiation absorption by the PV cells. A good, if technical overview here.

The EVA encapsulation film used to protect modules from moisture and the elements require a similar balancing act. These include letting the maximum amount of solar radiation reach the cells, while maintaining a near-100% moisture barrier with no significant expansion or contraction of the film over the 20+ year life of the module. And it needs to do this without creating an overheating of the module in hot climates.  A module with a high temperature coefficient (loss due to heat) is the

Copper PV Ribbon

enemy of high solar power production.

The series loss is due to series resistance in the cells themselves and in the cell and string connectors. The cells themselves are made from silicon, which not as good as metal for transporting current, and its internal resistance is fairly high, resulting in current loss.  This loss is compounded by copper ribbon (silver looking ribbon between cells) interconnection loss, and the cells’ series configuration in the module. While cells are put in series to meet a target voltage for a given module, this results in loss from the large number of connections.

There are a number of efforts underway to reduce this cell-to-module loss to 5% or less with novel approaches in all 3 areas. While the reduction to 5% has been achieved in national laboratories in an academic environment, the challenge always is to translate these new methods into a highly efficient manufacturing production line where throughput speed and yield (sellable product) are not compromised.

Solyndra was an outlier. It was a completely non-mainstream, highly risky technology commercialization play which had no technology history to support a reasonably quick, low-cost commercialization ramp.

An Automotive Outlier

The Solyndra technology and design was highly suspect from the moment it came out of stealth mode. Basic issues included round CIGS thin-film solar cells, which when deployed, had half the solar cell facing away from the incoming solar radiation. CIGS is still a developing story with many challenges on traditional flat plate modules, let alone a round tube. Optical experts found that the reflective claims (that sunlight hitting the white roof membrane underneath would reflect back at high intensity to the underside of the tubes) were highly suspect because of the loss of photon intensity during reflection. The high maintenance cycle for keeping the white membrane clean was another issue.

Of course manufacturing this type of completely new technology was expensive and Solyndra was selling at loss even before the recent crater in crystalline module prices. With scale of manufacturing always being the holy grail for reducing cost, it was hard to see how this would be accomplished without more investment capital in a company that already had $1B in investment capital. Raising additional capital with that cap table size would be more than difficult.

A PV Technology Outlier

The main issue for Solyndra and other new solar technologies that are not highly disruptive (through high exponential cost and performance advantages), is that it is extremely difficult to compete with the crystalline PV industry’s  40-year history and over $50B in cumulative R&D investment.  A complete explanation of this history and advantage can be found here.

The Solyndra event would seem to be another good example of herd mentality investing. Most people in the PV industry never took the concept seriously and mar veled at money as it poured in to Solyndra compared to far more worthwhile PV technology commercialization companies.

The one positive lesson that Solyndra taught was that different form factors and smart installation design can have a significant impact in desirability. Many downstream installers

Form Factor Lessons To Learn

and EPC companies were somewhat dubious of the technology performance.  With Solyndra’s pricing lowered to make projects viable (especially on roofs with weight limitations), they had the opportunity to work with the product and understand these advantages, and had significant enthusiasm for these features.  It’s a good, real-life product engineering test for the PV industry to take notice. Flat plate solar modules are not the only form factor in the future.

The PV industry has an incredible history in the last 7 years with average year over year growth of 60% through 2010. The industry is near $100B in revenues globally and employs millions of people throughout the supply chain both directly and in residual economic activity. The kWh cost of electricity from a PV system is now at or nearing grid parity in vast swaths of the developed world’s economies with minimal or no government support. (And doing so while competing highly subsidized fossil fuel, nuclear and hydro power) Solyndra is a mere blip in evolution of the PV industry and a complete sideshow in an industry that has been the fastest growing throughout the global recession. Unfortunately for the PV industry, the Solyndra story will continue to be a major political story as the 2012 election cycle ramps up and obfuscate this great history.

I took some time off from posting here as a result of a number of events.

Two dear friends passed away in late June, it was good time to step away and reflect on what is important.

In July, I ended my PV industry consulting practice and have taken a position with Suniva, Inc., an innovative American manufacturer of high performance mono-crystalline solar cells and modules. As Senior Director, Federal Business Development, I lead the company’s efforts in assisting civilian and DoD agencies who are diligently working to meet aggressive renewable energy and energy efficiency mandates. With our project developer and EPC partners, we are providing knowledge, experience and products for high resiliency, highly reliable onsite solar energy generation to meet these challenging timelines.

Suniva’s very capable management team is focused on high efficiency mono-crystalline cells but without the corresponding high price which has been typical for this cell type. Using novel intellectual property developed in the U.S., the company excels at innovation both at the cell and module level and on the manufacturing floor, resulting in lower cost to compete on a global basis.

I will be back to posting weekly again going forward. I will also be posting to my twitter feed, @ peacesolar, with specific news and content for my government and business partners in the near future.

Continued weekly monitoring of various entities throughout the supply chain shows the average selling price (ASP) on the spot market continues to decline in all categories except the inverter.

Of particular note is the sharp drop in poly silicon ASP from the previous week. Its widely believed that the efficient silicon refiners cost basis is approximately $25 – $28/kg and we may well see further substantial reductions if the demand situation remains week.

While the data above is sampled broadly from Tier1, 2, and 3 providers, the weaker entities with little or no bankability status will be feeling the pressure, soon, to idle further production and in some instances find an acquirer. Over the last 5 years, there has been speculation about consolidation of the many industry manufacturers when demand has temporarily weakened. This current market demand bust may be the one that results in bankruptcies and acquisitions of the lower tier players. The large Tier 1 players with weak cost structures are looking for strategic partners or majority acquirers such as the deal we saw between Sunpower and Total last month. This may also be the opportunity for the mega sized electronic manufacturing services companies like Flextronics, Foxconn and others substantially grow their PV industry presence with acquisitions.

In response to questions about how a solar cell operates, how labor cost aren’t a big component of the module price and the technology differences, following are a few videos that provide some answers and detail.

1) Energy 101: Solar PV

A great video for the U.S. Department of Energy on the basics of photovoltaic’s. Good visual on how a solar cell converts photons to electricity toward the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0elhIcPVtKE

2) Crystalline Module Manufacturing

Corporate video from Spire, a leading U.S. based module assembly company that provides automated module production machinery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUO3MDH_4Qo

3) Crystalline Solar Cell Manufacturing

Somewhat outdated corporate video from Q-Cells (no longer 2^nd largest cell manufacturer) but gives a good view of the manufacturing facility.

Module Assembly - Stringer Tabbing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KECQS-W6xg

4) Amorphous Silicon Micromorph Thin-Film Manufacturing

Sungen corporate video (apologies for the background music!) with good visuals and narration on the process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNwZrKR4gRI&NR=1