First Solar breaks solar energy’s $1 per watt barrier
First Solar claims to have reduced the cost of manufacturing solar modules to $0.98 per watt, a record in making solar energy affordable.
By Gail Flower, Contributing Editor -- EDN, February 26, 2009
First Solar Inc this week claimed a milestone in the solar industry toward providing a sustainable and affordable solar energy solution: solar modules manufactured below the $1 per watt point, at a cost of $0.98 per watt.
“This was truly a worldwide goal,” said Ken Zweibel, director of the Institute for the Analysis of Solar Energy at George Washington University. “The solar industry has been aiming at this goal for the past 25 years, and now it has been met by First Solar. The US leads the world in photovoltaics in terms of the technology with First Solar being the lowest cost practical manufacturing modules below $0.98 per watt and SunPower reporting the highest solar converting efficiency of approximately 20%.”
San Jose-based SunPower last May touted full-scale solar cell protototypes at 23.4% efficiency. The company has reported improvements in mass production since its first all-back contact solar cell prototype in 2003. CEO Tom Werner has stated that SunPower’s Gen 2 technology in mass production since 2007 is 22% efficient.
Tempe, Ariz-based First Solar began production of modules in 2004 and reached the $0.98 mark in Q4 2008. From 2004 to the present, the company's manufacturing capacity has grown 2,500% to more than 500 megawatts in 2008. Annual production capacity is predicted to double in 2009 to more than 1 gigawatt, the equivalent of an average-size nuclear plant, the company said. Through controlling costs while building volume, First Solar’s manufacturing costs have declined by more than two-thirds from the initial $3 per watt to less than $1 per watt.
Whereas, it has been a goal of the solar industry to reach the $1 per watt level, First Solar has made approximately 10 million modules for converting sunlight to energy and has a gain on others just entering the field by sheer experience.
“They’re ‘real’ and no one else is in that league at present,” Zweibel said of First Solar's accomplishment. “In order to address climate change in a meaningful way, we need energy technologies that are affordable, scalable, and have a low environmental impact on a life-cycle basis. With this announcement First Solar continues to demonstrate the ability of thin film PV technology to provide an alternative to traditional fossil fuels and for solar power to provide a meaningful contribution in addressing climate change.”
Mike Ahearn, CEO at First Solar, credited the German government and those of other countries for making the milestone possible in a statement. Germany has been a solar energy leader in large part as a response to the federal subsidies the country offers. Many of First Solar’s module installations have been done with government supported projects.
The company's statement made no mention of US government support efforts, which are late to offer market assistance, though the recent American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has reserves set aside for renewable energy support. The act designates $49.7 billion for energy, including $6.3 billion for renewable energy investments.
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abc - 2009-24-4 04:57:00 PDT -
Meredith has some good numbers. First off, this is a manufacturing cost, not a sales cost. Most companies need to multiply direct material/direct labor by 10. So are they selling the panels to Germany for 10 bucks a watt? I have friends in startups doing the same thing and they tell me it is easy to make BS claims like Nanosolar has done for years and hard to actually deliver product, in volume, at a price point below 3 bucks a watt (price, not cost). The other thing I wonder about it the worldwide supply of tellurium. If we start exhausting the world's supply the price will go up and the panels will not be a buck anymore. And don't forget the other component-- cadmium, considered a toxic heavy metal by Europe and others. No, this is just another BS press release from a company that is probably in dire need of investment cash. They try to make things look all rosy so they can get more capitol, but for my money I would rather pave my roof with Sunpower 22% efficient panels than this thin-film stuff that is maybe good for 14% but who knows.
Paul Rako - 2009-10-3 16:14:00 PDT -
To Kevin: The barrier is cost relative to competing (particularly established) technologies. A payback in 7 years is competitive, a payback in 24 years is not. The 'barrier' is the barrier to adoption.
Meredith Poor - 2009-3-3 14:19:00 PST -
Please note -- there is NO $1 BARRIER.
There is a $1 threshold that has psychological ramifications, but there is no barrier like the speed of sound or the speed of light.
Regards,
Kevin
Kevin Szabo - 2009-28-2 15:34:00 PST -
This quote is pulled from the nanosolar.com (/blog3) web page:
"- the world’s lowest-cost solar panel – which we believe will make us the first company capable of profitably selling solar panels for as little as $.99/Watt".
Discussions in wikipedia, among others, suggests they haven't proven anything, it's just a claim. Evidently their process costs aren't open to outside inspection.
To have more than one company making a similar claim at the same volume/price point might be viewed as confirmation. One other caveat in all this is that the produced panels are loaded into shipping containers and sent to Germany, due to their particular subsidy structure. American consumers aren't part of this market yet.
If 30 companies are producing 1 gigawatt each per year, then 30 years at 30 GW is 900 GW, which is roughly equivalent to the entire American power plant generating capacity at present. If solar is growing at 30% to 50% per year, this would put solar over the top (becoming the largest part of the production pool) around 2013.
One dollar per watt is the equivalent of 100,000 cents per kilowatt. Divide by 365 days x 5 hours per day (1800 hours per year) at ten cents per kilowatt-hour (or 18,000 cents per year) one gets a payback in the area of 7 years, not counting installation, wiring, controllers, batteries, etc. An average home would need to buy 6Kw worth of panels at a cost of $6000.
Meredith Poor - 2009-26-2 11:25:00 PST
