Photovoltaics
Peter Borden
11 January 2009
Applied Materials External Use

Area Required for a PV Power Plant to Supply
U.S. Annual Electricity Demand
Nevada
120 miles x 120 miles
= 0.4% of total U.S. land area
= 1/3 of U.S. land covered by roadways
= 2.5 times the area of all single-family residential rooftops
= 400 times 2008 display glass demand (100 km2)
Source: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
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Solar America volume-driven predictions
PG&E E1 tiered residential rate/kWhr
>3.0X
2-3.0X
1.3-2.0X
1-1.3X
Baseline
(F) (F) (F)
3
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PV growing rapidly, but small compared to demand
60% growth!
Module shortage
due to silicon supply
Source: Greentech Media
 California annual usage is 240,000 kWhr (Cal ISO).
 Equals 150 GW of PV assuming mean insolation of 1600 kWhr/kW.
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Domestic rooftops – a great early market
2.7 kW PV array
(14 SunPower
panels, ~18%),
$6/watt after
rebates,
-$50 electric bill
last year)
Planned tower for
2,700 kW wind
turbine
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Commercial Rooftop (grid-connected)
Google – 1.5 MW
Applied Matrials – 2 MW
Sizes from
tens of kW
to >2 MW
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Solar Farms
Biggest solar farm is 65MW;
farms over 100MW are in
the near future!
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Scaling changes market dynamics
Lower cost enabled FPDs to replace CRTs
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Module manufacturing cost scaling
100
Historical
1980
Projected
$21.83/W
Module Cost ($/W)*
1990
$6.07/W
10
2005
$2.70/W
18% learning curve
1
1 10 100 1,000 10,000 1E5
Cumulative Volume (MW)
Production line size 0.5 5 50 100
(Megawatts per Year): (1980) (2000) (2005) (2010)
Lines Per Factory 2 3 4 10
* 2002 Dollars
Source: Navigant Consulting
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The two mainstream types of PV
Wafer-based Crystal Silicon Thin Film
Lower efficiency for cost constrained markets
Higher efficiency for area constrained markets
(Sufficient area available to meet generation
(Greater revenue compensates for
needs gives advantage to lower installed $/watt)
higher installed $/watt)
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2007 Module Efficiency – c-Si and Thin Film
Photon International Survey
Advanced silicon
19.3
20
CZ and MC silicon
18
16.7
16 15.1
14.4 14.4 14.4
Thin film
14.3
14.2 14.0 13.8
13.7 13.7 13.5
13.3 13.3
14 13.1 12.8
Efficiency (%)
12 11.1 11.0
10
8.5
7.6
8
6.6
6
4
2
0
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 Thin Film suppliers need higher module efficiency with low manufacturing costs
 Silicon suppliers need incremental efficiency and cost gains to stay ahead of TF
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Summary
 PV is one of many players in the energy picture. Flexible system
size, low maintenance enable it to effectively serve many markets
 Today, supply is small, but growing rapidly
 Scaling and competition between PV technologies is driving down
cost per watt.
 As costs come down, PV will penetrate larger markets
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