Take a moment to search for all growth predictions in the solar industry and most point to a figure of US$30billion by 2010. Well, a funny thing happened on the way to growth. A shortage of silicon feedstock occurred in the first half of this year severely stunting availability of everything down the food chain from wafers to modules. So the basic concern becomes: No silicon=no solar cells=no solar modules=no growth!
I recently attended the world’s largest solar conference in Barcelona. One of the most interesting trade shows I’d ever been too, simply because most booths were doing “damage control” rather than selling. What can you sell if you don’t have any supply of raw materials? And now, as a result of shortages and the rising price of silicon feedstock, prices of solar modules are skyrocketing. As reference visit http://www.solarbuzz.com/moduleprices.htm and you’ll see what I mean. Do you know of any other high tech industry in which you pay MORE for the same thing one year later? How funny it would be if Intel announced price increases for the SAME chip?
ICP SOLAR is doing its best to satisfy clients, and thankfully our contracts for silicon-based solar cell supply extend well into 2006. For many of our own products, ICP makes its solar cells in the UK using a thin-film process avoiding the need for silicon feedstock. We’re having a run on our capacity as well, yet we are able to protect clients who had given us forecasts for the year. The problem has been in situations where no forecast has been received and in numerous new customers knocking on our door. You cannot have a more painful picture in our business than that of the salesperson refusing new business! The only ones who seem to still have production capacity available to sell are those that are the at the bottom of the food chain, with low quality or broken solar cells that are dispensed as unusable by most of the industry.
And yet an answer may be provided in the several new technologies demonstrated in Barcelona. For the purpose of this article, I will mention one new technology that is sure to “disrupt” the thinking in the solar industry. Konarka Technologies http://www.konarka.com is run by a friend of mine, Howard Berke. This youthful yet experienced entrepreneur has led several technology startups in the New England area. His latest company has developed an “organic” solar cell, samples of which were on display at the Barcelona show after years in the lab. His company is also working on “plastic solar” with developments due out at a later time yet to be announced. None of these solar cells use silicon feedstock. So the path for these technologies, many of which are called “thin film”, has no bottleneck of silicon supply. They are also less expensive to make.
In the end therefore, new horses may emerge from this situation simply because of the fear of the industry of having its growth stunted. For ICP’s sake, we are already scoping out new technologies to install within our UK plant or elsewhere, as our growth depends on supply just like anyone else’s.
The solar industry is being forced to transform by the forces of the market. That is a good thing. We’ll surely have more bumps in later 2005 and 2006, but I predict that by end of 2006 the supply issues will become less prevalent due to several new plants coming on-board, with new technologies as well. Stay tuned..its gonna be a wild ride!