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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Handy table of Top 20 Photovoltaic Manufacturers

Aug 19 2008 11:29AM | Permalink |Email this|Comments (24) |

While doing some research recently on solar cell manufacturers, I contacted Dr. Henning Wicht, senior director and principal analyst for photovoltaics and MEMS at iSuppli. He shared the following table with me, which ranks photovoltaic suppliers by manufacturing volume as well as noting the type of cells: Crystalline or thin-film. Any manufacturer that has a [1] under "Cell technology" also manufacturers thin-film, although crystalline is its primary technology

Interesting to note that in spite of the subsidies and overall emphasis given by some Asian and European governments, US-based First Solar is ranked fourth, and apparently is ranked first in the rapidly growing thin-film segment. (First Solar is supplying much of the rooftop panels to SC Edison for their huge 800 MW rooftop solar retrofit project.)


Company	CountryOf Origin	Cell Technology	Capacity 2008 (announced)
Sharp Electronics	Japan	Crystalline[1]	870
Q-Cells	Germany	Crystalline[1]	834
Suntech Power Holdings Ltd.	China	Crystalline[1]	590
First Solar	USA	Thin-film	484
SolarWorld	Germany	Crystalline	460
Sanyo	Japan	Crystalline	365
BP Solar	UK	Crystalline	480
Kyocera	Japan	Crystalline	300
Motech Industries Inc.	Taiwan	Crystalline	330
Solarfun Power Holdings	China	Crystalline	360
SunPower Corp.	USA	Crystalline	414
Gintech Energy Corporation	Taiwan	Crystalline	300
E-TON SOLAR TECH	Taiwan	Crystalline	320
Yingli Green Energy	China	Crystalline	400
CEEG Nanjing PV Tech Co.Ltd.	China	Crystalline	390
China Sunergy Co. Ltd	China	Crystalline	320
Mitsubishi	Japan	Crystalline[1]	280
Ersol Solar Energy AG	Germany	Crystalline	220
Jing Ao Solar Co Ltd.	China	Crystalline	175
Moser Baer Photovoltaic	India	Crystalline[1]	120

Total (in MW)			8012
Total for Top 10			5073

Related entries in: Power Sources/Controllers | Solar/Photovoltaics |

Reader Comments

at 8/19/2008 1:44:52 PM, Meredith Poor said:
When the Total in Mw exceeds 30,000 (in other words, 30 gigawatts) annual production will be right around the level necessary to replace all the non-renewable energy resources currently in production in the United States (which is, in turn, about 1/4th of all power production in the world). 30 years times 30 gw is 900Gw, or nearly 1 trillion watts. A chart of the wind turbine providers added to this might well show that we're close to, or beyond, half way there.

at 8/19/2008 2:09:43 PM, Kirk said:
CSIQ missing

at 8/19/2008 2:12:26 PM, solarman said:
Why do you not have Nanosolar included in your company list? They claim to have a printable solar cell process that will drive the cost way down and up the efficiency at the same time.

at 8/19/2008 2:13:06 PM, DK said:
So... why does the ranking go screwy after First Solar?

at 8/19/2008 2:45:49 PM, boB said:
I think that Nanosolar isn''t listed because they are still shipping prototypes. You can not even get spec sheets on their modules yet without some kind of NDA I think. boB K7IQ Washington, AC

at 8/19/2008 2:50:09 PM, EitanQ said:
Spectrolab, in Simi Valley CA has a triple junction process that can deliver over 33% efficiency at multiple suns. Concentrating the sunlight with cheap optics will reduce cost and actually increase reliability.

at 8/19/2008 2:53:44 PM, DrDoug said:
Based on actual 2007 PV manufacturing levels (in peak MW)the top 10 were: Q-Cells, Sharp, Suntech, Kyocera, First Solar, Motech, SolarWorld, Sanyo, Yingli and JA Solar. The "announced" 2008 capacity is a bit suspect since your top 5 indicate more than a 100% growth compared to 2007, so be careful what you believe. And yes, First Solar's thin film CdTe technology is the only non-silicon player in the top 10. Bully for them! Nanosolar, Global Solar, Miasole and the other CIGS players have a ways to go before they achieve commercial success but they should be interesting to watch. Stay tuned.

at 8/19/2008 4:53:04 PM, sushiman said:
"capacity" here means "capability" and not necessarily the actual production. They may have capability to produce these amount of pv cells or modules but they may run the line 75% of its capability or even less due to silicon shortage. This consideration may affect the whole table.

at 8/19/2008 5:20:31 PM, #327bulb said:
What's needed in the US is regulation requiring utilities to buy back residential power at the retail rate combined with tax incentives (nationwide - some states have them now) to allay the cost of the panels and inverters.

at 8/19/2008 7:35:41 PM, LASEROB@aol.com said:
At ELK INDUSTRIES, LLC, we have just begun Producing and Selling Our OWN BRAND of SOLAR PANELS. They are "Top Grade" Panels, and Meet or exceed the NASA Block-5 Module Specifications. They are PolyCrystalline Type, and therefore, have a Smaller "Foot Print" than Amorphous Silicon Panels. We (also) are working on SOLAR (Photovoltaic) Panels which do NOT USE ANY Silicon (at all, as one of the Main Ingredients) to Produce them! Our Website: www.elkindustries.com Thank You.

at 8/20/2008 1:18:50 AM, ls said:
Even if there are 2 US companies, their main production is done overseas - Philipines for Sunpower and China for First Solar. Thin film will become important in 09 as AMAT supplied fabs come online. Ersol has at least one large thin film line. For good information on solar (and more accurate), read Photon magazine online.

at 8/20/2008 4:26:55 AM, kgd said:
How are these capacities defined? Are they the figures for the raw output from a panel pointed directly at the noonday sun, or for the usable output averaged over time? Allowing for day/night, obliquity factor, fouling by dirt, atmospheric scattering, shading by clouds and chimneys and AC/DC conversion losses, I estimate that the usable power is only around 15% of the peak figure.

at 8/20/2008 6:36:00 AM, oterif said:
Please consider CENTROSOLAR AG (GERMANY) with 150 MW leader in Europe for rooftop modules

at 8/20/2008 6:38:50 AM, James said:
Table missing United Solar Ovonic (www.uni-solar.com) based in Michigan and is a U.S. powerhouse for thin films.

at 8/20/2008 7:14:45 AM, LHB said:
Interesting list ... seems to be missing some key players... REC and SCHOTT SOLAR should surely be on this ?

at 8/20/2008 9:38:06 AM, Reply to James said:
Uni-Solar''s 2008 capacity is 118MWs, thus it does not qualify to be included (as it will occupy 21st place)

at 8/20/2008 5:30:56 PM, Ken said:
This list is good to show who has spent a lot of money building manufacturing capacity. But it doesn''''t show the two very important factors: 1) Current $/watt for each manufacturer. 2) Current acreage/MW required for installation based on some norm like New Mexico. Many of these have high and inefficient costs but are being propped up with government regulations requiring rapid deployment of renewables and the lack of grid distribution prevents renewables from being able to be bought and placed inefficiently, leaving ratepayers again to hold the bag of paying excessive capital costs.

at 8/20/2008 5:33:39 PM, Applied said:
It appears Applied may be chasing those who already have cost structures half of their own and expect to halve that again in the next year...reaching grid parity without incentives. It will be interesting to see these entities battle it out, anyone who thought manufacturing would ever remain in the US was a little naive, this is a very cost sensitive industry and manufacturing costs are lower in China and elsewhere.

at 8/27/2008 9:26:03 AM, Paul Rako said:
I wrote Nanosolar asking them if they were in production, and if so, what was the volume and what the cost was. They never responded. My buddy that works for a competitor says Nanosolar is big on talk but fails to deliver. The watts are peak at AZ at noon, I don't think the realizable output is as bad as 15%, it is more like 30%, at least in lower latitudes, and that includes the off-time at night.

at 9/2/2008 1:29:52 PM, Pradeep Chakraborty said:
You have missed several names from India, especially, Reliance.

at 9/18/2008 6:06:46 AM, Sunny said:
Reliance is yet to produce anything... thay have a small moduling facility in Maharashtra but that about it... MoserBaer has 120MW installed already and will have another 165 MW added to this existing capacity by 09 end and thats not the end, end 2010, MoserBaer will have installed capacity 800 MW

at 2/11/2009 12:29:27 PM, aloha_sunergy said:
Are there any good newsletters, or websites for solar industry people?

at 4/18/2009 8:51:20 AM, champon said:
2008 Q-cells 581.6 First Solat 504.0 Suntech 497.5 Sharp 473.0 JA 300.0 Kyocera 290.0 Yingli 281.5 Motech 272.0 SunPower 237.0 Sanyo 215.0 Trina 210.0 SolarWorld 190.0 Gintech 180.0 Ningbo Solar Electric 160.0 Solarfun 149.0 Schott 149.0 MHI 148.0 BP 145.0 Ersol 143.0 Neo Solar 135.0 REC 135.0 Isofoton 130.0 China Sunergy co. 120.0 Uni-Solar 112.6 Changzhou Eging 106.0 Canadian Solar Inc. 102.8

at 6/22/2009 1:30:24 AM, omar said:
does anyone know about manufacturers of c-Si PV for concentrator systems?

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