Glen Allen, Virginia [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] The global thin-film photovoltaics (TFPV) market is forecast to reach $7.2 billion by 2015, compared to just over $1.0 billion today, according to a new report from NanoMarkets LC, an industry analyst firm based in Virginia.
According to the report, the market is being driven by the inherent advantages of TFPV including low cost, low weight, and the ability to manufacture them on flexible substrates and embed solar power capabilities into walls, roofs and even windows. Unlike more conventional PV that uses crystalline silicon, TFPV also has the ability to operate under low light conditions.
The report notes that to support the growing demand for TFPV, most manufacturers are ramping up production capacity and several — including First Solar, Fuji Electric, Nanosolar, Sanyo, Uni-Solar and G24i — are building plants with more than 100 MW in capacity.
Some of the findings of the report include:
• Because worldwide energy prices are rising fast and PV prices are falling fast, PV will carve off a big slice of the energy market and could eventually account for as much as 20 percent of the U.S. market’s energy needs. Because TFPV costs less than conventional PV, TFPV is most likely to take off first. Just a few years ago, TFPV was only five percent of the entire PV market, but it is expected to account for 35 percent of the PV market by 2015.
• Conventional PV is expensive to make. By contrast TFPV can be manufactured using simple printing or other R2R machines; the value of printed TFPV is expected to reach just over $3.0 billion by 2015. Printing PV has the potential for lowering capital costs by as much as 75 percent, reducing waste and increasing throughput.
• The fact that TFPV is also much lighter than conventional PV and can be more easily applied to curved and non-planar surfaces, TFPV is easier to install on roofs and walls. Where a lot of panels need to be installed on a roof, using TF PV reduces the likelihood that the roof will have to be specially reinforced.
• PV based on organic materials is more ecologically friendly than other PV approaches. Efficiencies of organic PV are also improving rapidly and new cell architectures promise that the performance of organic PV devices could come close to or possibly even exceed those of their purely inorganic counterparts. By 2015 NanoMarkets expects shipments of organic PV to reach 500 MW.
The report also includes detailed eight-year (in dollar and peak MW terms) forecasts of these markets and profiles of all the leading firms developing and marketing this emerging technology and an assessment of the impact of TFPV on government funding and subsidies in the U.S. Europe and Japan.
