In chronological order, here are the PV conferences I am interested in following or covering in 2010. As in the past, my focus remains technical conferences and business to business trade shows, not regional marketing or sales events. I am biased towards the United States and Europe and really need to branch out and explore events in Asia and Japan. Maybe I will find an opportunity in 2010.

ENF.cn maintains a comprehensive list of global PV Solar Exhibitions and Conferences with one or more events per week except in the summer and December. PHOTON International’s PV Event list expands the solution set, but the combination of ENF and PHOTON still misses a few events!

With Photovoltaic Conferences and Exhibitions more abundant than Thin Film PV manufacturers, why hasn’t the trade press written about PV event consolidation?

I am a bit tired of mega events, but the PV industry has rallied around select events as platforms for launching products and entering new markets. The only location alignment in my short list is San Francisco with two events.

PHOTON‘s 5^th Photovoltaic Technology Show 2010 USA
February 2-4, 2010
San Francisco, California USA

Building upon PHOTON‘s Searching for the »Second Solar« Conference Series USA, the 5th Photovoltaic Technology Show (PTS USA 2010 Show Flyer) adds an exhibition to the conference located at Moscone West Levels 1-3.

PHOTON’s Solar Terawatt-hours Conference Series

• PHOTON’s 2^nd PV Thin-Film Conference – February 2, 2010
• PHOTON’s 2^nd PV Start-up Conference – February 3, 2010
• PHOTON’s 3^rd Solar Electric Utility Conference – February 4, 2010

PV Thin Film and start-ups are a perfect fit for California, and the Utility Conference Program is strong with both Utility and PV industry participation.

2nd Concentrated Photovoltaic Summit US
February 2-3, 2010
San Diego, California USA

CPV Today hosts their second US Concentrated PhotoVoltaics (CPV) Summit with unfortunate timing concurrent to PHOTON’s 5th Technology Show. Here is the Full Agenda and Who’s Attending.

Fifth Annual Clean Technology & Renewables Conference
February 23, 2010
New York City, New York USA

The Piper Jaffray & Co. (NYSE:PJC) invitation only, client event is hosted by Sr. Research Analyst Jesse Pichel and team.

6. International Conference on Concentrating Photovoltaic Systems (CPV-6)
April 7-9, 2010
Freiburg, Germany

Renamed, CPV-6 follows ICSC-5 (International Conference on Solar Concentrators for the Generation of Electricity) as the scientific conference focused on CPV technology Topics. The 9th World Conference on Thermophotovoltaics (TPV-9) Generation of Electricity will be held “in conjunction with and at the conclusion of the CPV-6” on April 9, 2010, in the afternoon.

PHOTON’s 6^th Photovoltaic Technology Show 2010 Europe
April 27 – 29, 2010
Stuttgart, Germany

Moving from Munich, the 6th Photovoltaic Technology Show (PTS Europe 2010 Show Flyer) headlines an expanded exhibition in Stuttgart. In addtion to photovoltaic production equipment and material manufacturers, a third hall has been added “to present findings from basic research and applications research, testing and measurement equipment, product and process certification, as well as semi-finished products and BOS components.”

The conference program has the same All Star lineup as 2009:

• 8^th Solar Silicon Conference – April 27, 2010
• 5^th PV Investors Conference – April 28, 2010
• 5^th PV Production Equipment Conference (Part 1 – C-Si) – April 28, 2010
• 5^th PV Production Equipment Conference (Part 2 – Thin film) – April 29, 2010
• 4^th Solar Electric Utility Conference – April 29, 2010

I was pleased to fulfill my silicon destiny at PHOTON’s 7th Solar Silicon Conference last year.

Intersolar 2010
June 9-11, 2010 (PV Industry Forum 2010 June 7-8, 2010)
Munich (München), Germany

Intersolar returns to the New Munich Trade Fair Centre for the third straight year. By “Connecting Solar Business”, Intersolar 2010 expects around 1500 exhibitors to attract over 60000 visitors.

The PV Industry Forum 2010 begins the two days prior to the start of Intersolar.

• PV Market Trends Europe, USA, India – June 7, 2010
Overview followed by In-depth market and industry assessment

• PV Thin Film Technology, PV Silicon Technology, PV Power Plants, PV Production, CEO Panel PV Industry – June 8, 2010

• PV Off Grid Power – June 10, 2010

The full Conference Program was not available at post time.

I opted for Intersolar 2009 over PVSC 34 after a Press Room conversation, and I was not disappointed. PVSC 34 was even located in my home town, Philadelphia!

35th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC 35)
June 20-25, 2010
Honolulu, Hawaii USA

PVSC 35 lands at Waikiki for a week long conference covering ten (10) Technical Areas. Remember, Abstracts are due by February 15, 2010, so please View Technical Area E-Book for the details. In addition, a 60000 square foot “Exhibition will have special focus on measurement and characterization tools, and we will be highlighting space PV applications.”

Intersolar North America 2010 / SEMICON West 2010
July 13-15, 2010 Exhibition
San Francisco, California USA

Intersolar North America (NA) 2009 hosted 444 exhibitors and attracted 17000 combined trade visitors at Moscone Center. Download the SEMICON West 2009 Post-Show Report for the detailed metrics. The Intersolar NA 2010 conference program is supposed to be available in early February.

25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition
September 6-10, 2010 (Exhibition September 6-9, 2010)
Valencia, Spain

The 25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (EU PVSEC) is the harmonic convergence of EU PVSEC, the 36th US IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, and the 20th Asia/Pacific PV Science and Engineering Conference as the 5th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC-5) despite the conflict with the US Labor Day holiday.

Well, I was shocked when Valencia was announced as the 2010 EU PVSEC venue. I have painful memories of lost luggage and stolen articles with Iberia (Ibysmal) Airlines. My advice is to bring only carry-on luggage and hold on tight!

Abstracts are due January 30, 2010, per the Call for Papers.

Solar Power International 2010
October 12-14, 2010
Los Angeles, California USA

As “North America’s largest business-to-business solar industry event”, Solar Power International (SPI) continues to hop southern California venues to convince our state’s southern citizens to become mainstream solar adopters. SPI is the show to launch new products or enter the US solar market.

SPI 2009 had record attendance of over 24000 industry professionals plus some 3000 Public Night visitors. Don’t forget SPI 2009 Conference session recordings and presentations are available online for registered attendees.

23rd NREL Industry Growth Forum
October 19-21, 2010
Denver, Colorado USA

The original renewable energy business plan competition continues its run in Denver with the date set early. Last year, I had less than half a day to attend but managed to post Cool Earth Solar at the 22nd NREL Industry Growth Forum. The 22nd Forum Proceedings are available.

11th Forum Solarpraxis
November 11-12, 2010
Berlin, Germany

The 11th Forum Solarpraxis will occur two weeks before the Thanksgiving Day holiday in the United States. Here is the Announcement in English und Deutsch. I missed the last two, so perhaps the Thanksgiving scheduling was not so bad after all?

For whatever reason, I never seem to fit in the ASES (American Solar Energy Society) National Solar Conference. SOLAR 2010, CONNECT in the Desert, will be located in Phoenix, Arizona USA from May 17-22, 2010.

One more thing. The second PV America was postponed and has been rescheduled to return to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA on April 3-5, 2011.

©2010 GUNTHER Portfolio. All Rights Reserved.

In a December EU PVSEC Newsletter, WIP-Renewable Energies provided an update on the combined 25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition and 5th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC-5).

As I tweeted last week:

WIP: All Conference Manuscripts presented at the 23rd and 24th EU PVSEC available online now! http://bit.ly/8h3WJH #PV #Solar Ed: Cool deal!

I was excited by the immediate availability of 23rd and the 24th EU PVSEC scientific papers for download at EU PVSEC Proceedings. The papers are searchable by subject, authors, institutions, keywords, or events, and a unique digital identifier (DOI code) enables clear citability online. However, I missed the part where each paper costs €10! This per paper pricing makes the 23rd and 24th EU PVSEC Conference Proceedings CD-ROMs seem like a much better deal.

I’ve found most, if not all, paper authors are very happy to share their work when contacted. Many of the papers are available online including Fraunhofer ISE (Fraunhofer-Instituts für Solare Energiesysteme) EU PVSEC Conference Papers since 2007, for example.

Also, please remember the 25th EU PVSEC and WCPEC-5 Call for Papers is open and abstracts are due by January 30, 2010. I am again thinking about submitting an abstract for the world conference from September 6-10, 2010, in Valencia, Spain. I would be very happy with a poster presentation since I may not be quite ready for an oral presentation.

Please see Best Wishes for the Holidays and a Tip Top 2010! for my online greeting card.

©2010 GUNTHER Portfolio. All Rights Reserved.

With “KSK Surya Photovoltaic Venture Selects SunFab Solar Panel Production Lines for 150MW Project in India”, Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT) ended an almost one year three month drought since the last SunFab deal with Moncada Energy Group s.r.l. per “Moncada Enters Solar Energy Market with Contract for Applied Materials’ SunFab Thin Film Line”.

Should this be viewed as a positive sign of at least a slow recovery from the Great Recession and credit crunch? Perhaps a better question is how have Applied Materials SunFab customers fared to date?

In “VLSI Research ranks Top 10 PV Manufacturing Equipment Suppliers for 2008”, I didn’t calculate the MegaWatt-peak (MWp) cumulative production of Applied Materials SunFab customers. At Intersolar 2009 (Munich), an Applied Materials executive told me “SunFab customers had cumulative production of about 300000 quarter sized modules.” As time has passed, I double checked the number with the AMAT Public Relations team for this post.

When I got the revised number, I was surprised, even astonished: “820,000 1/4 size equivalent panels.” That is an over 2.7 times cumulative production increase since Intersolar. A quarter (1/4) size equivalent module (panel) is a SunFab signature 5.7 m² (square meter) panel divided into four (4) modules.

The figure contradicted information from other sources indicating many SunFab lines have been idling or in low volume production. Upon my questioning, AMAT said this is the total number of modules manufactured all the way through the line (modules out), and Applied cannot comment on what customers sell but our yields on these modules are running very high (in the 90’s).

Again, without knowing the module mix from SunFab manufacturers, single junction a-Si (amorphous Silicon) PV modules range from about 78 to 90 Wp (Watt-peak) and Tandem Junction a-Si/μc-Si (amorphous and microcrystalline Silicon) modules range from say 110 to 120 Wp translating to anywhere from 64.0 to 98.4 MWp (MegaWatt-peak) of cumulative production. Given yield uncertainty and only two SunFab customers, Sunfilm AG and ENN Group, have tandem lines, I guesstimate the actual number is skewed towards the lower 64.0 MWp.

From 24th EU PVSEC

Just at the 24th EU PVSEC Analyst Briefing, Applied Materials CEO Michael Splinter presented:

• 6 SunFab lines in 4 countries
• Manufacturing capacity >230MW
• Panels produced > 600k
• 9.25% stable aperture efficiency in production, 10% in lab

Ignoring the timing of SunFab line factory ramps, more than enough capacity is in place to produce 820000 modules.

From 24th EU PVSEC

Later, Senior Vice President, General Manager Energy and Environmental Solutions and Display and Chief Technology Officer Mark R. Pinto added:

SunFab™TF:

• Ramping to scale and delivering ~$1.20/Wp module today, ~$0.70/Wp in 2012
• Delivering 9.25% stable aperture efficiency in production, 10% in lab
• Increasing number of project bids include SunFab modules

The 9.25% aperture efficiency is for tandem modules, and I will posit the ~$1.20/Wp production cost may just be a projection for multiple Tandem Junction SunFab lines.

From 24th EU PVSEC

Stuck between crystalline silicon and CdTe (Cadmium Telluride)
Relentless price erosion in the 2009 PV market has squeezed a-Si modules the hardest. SunFab manufacturers produce modules with lower efficiencies =and= at higher production costs than industry leader First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR). Crystalline silicon solar modules have further pressured the a-Si value proposition with high efficiency at a relative low cost driven by cheaper polysilicon. In the 2009 PV buyer’s market, a-Si modules are waiting behind First Solar and crystalline silicon manufacturers as inventories are cleared. Per one of my tweets last week, 2010 may prove even worse for SunFab a-Si and tandem modules. Nuying Huang and Adam Hwang report “Major China PV module makers lower 1Q10 quotes to 1.2-1.3 euro/watt” for DIGITIMES (subscription may be required) setting an even lower price ceiling for SunFab modules.

From 24th EU PVSEC

Where The Streets Have No Name? (Thanks U2!)
Which leaves the key question, where have all the SunFab PV modules gone?

The Signet Solar Product Installations page still cites their 230 kW rooftop installation at the Signet factory in Mochau, Germany, as their largest to date. Meanwhile according to “Signet introduces 400W single junction silicon module” by Syanne Olson at PV-tech.org, “Signet says its production line is operating at full capacity.” In August 2009, Sunfilm was proud to announce “SUNFILM AND SUNOVA PUT MORE THAN 1MWP OF THIN FILM TANDEM JUNCTION MODULES ON ROOFS”. “Moser Baer to develop a one megawatt solar farm project in Maharashtra, India” followed in September. And “Duke Energy, China’s ENN to build solar power projects” by Arundhati Ramanathan for Reuters was a significant late week deal for the ENN Group without mention of project sizes or the shipment of a single module, yet.

If SunFab a-Si and tandem modules are indeed selling through and not stacking up in inventories, how close to manufacturing cost do they need to be priced to sell?

©2010 GUNTHER Portfolio. All Rights Reserved.

It’s been like forever (1 year, 8 months, 10 days) since my last Solar Light Flashes. I’ve always planned to resurrect the haphazard post. Twitter delayed the return but sometimes 140 characters are insufficient.

From 24th EU PVSEC

centrotherm photovoltaics AG (ETR:CTN)

Only the Photovoltaic (PV) Industry plasters roadmaps or manufacturing costs on exhibition stand signage. The last official centrotherm CIGS (copper indium gallium diselenide) news was “Success in the thin film division: centrotherm photovoltaics achieves 13 percent efficiency for mass production”. Tom Cheyney chatted with centrotherm in “EU PVSEC short takes: Talking CIGS turnkey, eyeballing a Nanosolar panel, and more” at PV-tech.org.

I wonder what the latest is on Sunshine PV Corp.’s installation and ramp of a 30 MW (MegaWatt) centrotherm CIGS production line?

From 24th EU PVSEC

German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) 2009: Direct Use

Cornelia Viertl, Senior Advisor for Solar Energy and Geothermal Energy at the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, presented the “Political Framework for the PV market in Germany” at EU PVSEC. The slide on Direct Use shown above attracted my attention.

The EEG Direct Use provision has been painted by a few US Feed-in Tariff (FiT) naysayers as a German step towards California style Performance Based Incentives or even net metering. In reality, the Special tariff option =pays= the consumer €0.2501 per kWh (kiloWatt-hour) for each kWh of electricity consumed over a 20 year period! The Direct Use tariff is in effect a Feed-in Tariff minus a flat residential electricity rate. In practice, a German residential PV installation selecting the Direct Use option can achieve a zero Euro electric bill with less than half the PV system capacity required under California net metering rules.

As I tweeted back then, the silliest thing I heard at Intersolar NA 2009 was said by Prometheus Institute President Travis Bradford during his “State of the Solar Industry” presentation. Mr. Bradford said:

A lot of people that are promoting Feed-in Tariffs in the United States um just know at the same time Germany is trying to move to a California based model. So how are you going to reconcile that?

With German PV Feed-in Tariffs under pressure because of the steep fall in solar module prices and the new conservative CDU FDP coalition government, I expect FiT detractors will disinform during Solar Power International 2009 at every opportunity.

From 24th EU PVSEC

Fraunhofer ISE (Institute for Solar Energy Systems)

At the Fraunhofer ISE stand, a FLATCON® Module with Reflective Secondary Optics was on display hinting at the possible future direction of Concentrix Solar GmbH. Still under development, the modules with reflective secondary optics were said to have achieved efficiencies as high as 29.1% outdoors without citing further details.

From 24th EU PVSEC

Global Solar Energy, Inc.

Is something wrong at Global Solar? When I had an unpleasant question for them, I discovered Global Solar had dropped the PR firm listed on their website, and I never got a response from the company. Global Solar has been mum (perhaps by contract?) throughout The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE:DOW) CIGS solar shingle hoopla, “DOW™ POWERHOUSE™ Solar Shingle Unveiled”, or please see “Dow Unveils Solar Shingles” by Todd Woody for the New York Times Green Inc. Blog. So what happens if a nail is hammered through a CIGS cell by accident?

From 24th EU PVSEC

KCC Polysilicon

After achieving 150 MT (Metric Ton) polysilicon pilot production in 2008, KCC Corporation (SEO:002380) claims to be on schedule to complete the construction of two (2) polysilicon factories with 3000 MT annual capacity each by the end of 2009. One is fully owned by KCC while the second is a joint venture (JV) between KCC and Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (SEO:009540) called Korean Advanced Material (KAM). Phase I mass production is slated to ramp at both factories in the first to second quarter of 2010. KCC will produce the TCS (Trichlorosilane) used for polysilicon production.

From 24th EU PVSEC

Q-Cells SE (ETR:QCE)

Q-Cells CEO Anton Milner made quite the EU PVSEC entrance when he arrived in the solar taxi. OK, I did not witness nor believe that happened, but the concept was made possible by a Q-Cells’ community initiative.

From 24th EU PVSEC

RTS Corporation

RTS Corporation President Osamu IKKI presented “PV market of Japan: Rising again with the new support framework”. As the above slide shows, RTS projects the Japanese PV market will grow to 400-500 MW in 2009 and 1.0-1.2 GW by 2012. In the near term, residential and municipal (schools) PV applications dominate. Japanese utilities have announced Distributed Generation PV projects from 1.5 MW to 18 MW in size slated for completion over the next few years.

From 24th EU PVSEC

Schmid Group

When I saw the sign, I just had to take a few photos at the Schmid stand without any particular agenda.

From 24th EU PVSEC

Schmid Silicon Technology GmbH (SST)

Since Schmid Pilot Production Topping Out, “Installation of first equipment has started” (Deutsch) was the news somewhere around September 14, 2009. Per SST, potential customers are waiting for the successful completion of pilot production to prove the Schmid Process.

From 24th EU PVSEC

Skyline Solar, Inc.

Skyline Solar had a stand at EU PVSEC (and will have one at Solar Power International 2009 also known as SPI 09). Why? Exactly. Don’t they need to get their modules certified before their solution has any hope of being bankable?

Judging by the participation of Skyline Solar VP of Marketing Tim Keating in the SPI 09 panel, “Shifting from Installed Costs to Performance Costs: Why $/W is No Longer Relevant to the End Market”, on Tuesday, Oct 27, 2009, from 11:00AM to 12:30PM, accelerating PV’s path to grid parity with High Gain Solar (HGS) lies through price and cost obfuscation.

From 24th EU PVSEC

SolarEdge Technologies Inc.

At EU PVSEC, I learned SolarEdge has some 25 MW (MegaWatts) of backlog with production at about 200 kW (kiloWatts) per week. Since Close to the SolarEdge, SolarEdge has racked up awards (Global Cleantech 100, Frost & Sullivan), partners (HaWi, Isofotón), and investors. I expect further big news around SPI 09 though SolarEdge is forgoing their trademark exhibition edge location for central stand 2438.

From 24th EU PVSEC

Sony Chemicals Europe B.V.

When I saw the SONY stand, I thought it might be for solar modules or a PV powered PSP (PlayStation Portable). Sony Chemical & Information Device Corporation was promoting photovoltaic module materials through its European subsidiary, Sony Chemicals Europe B.V.

Products included a Solar Cell Conductive Film SP102F1 used as a connecting material between metal ribbons and solar cells in crystalline silicon and thin film PV modules and a tentative datasheet for an Encapsulant with backsheet.

From 24th EU PVSEC

Tigo Energy

I met with Tigo just before their announcement on gaining UL compliance, “Tigo Energy Achieves Compliance/Certification Landmark”. Tigo also announced the Module Maximizer-ES (MM-ES), perfect for string retrofit installations, had a $56 MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price). Tigo mentioned the Module Maximizer solution is seeing traction in retrofit applications in Spain and even in Germany with an unnamed commercial sized PV system. Tigo was also awarded the Global Cleantech 100 honor like a competitor mentioned above. Perhaps the tie I declared in Intersolar 2009: My Photovoltaic Top 10 List was prescient?

Is Tigo’s $56 MSRP kryptonite to SolarMagic priced at $199 each and requiring the one $79 blocking diode per string?

From 24th EU PVSEC

Tyco Electronics Ltd. (NYSE:TEL)

Tyco earns my creative promotion award by joining twitter (http://twitter.com/TycoElectronics) and offering a “Twitter Goodie” to those visiting the Tyco stand and uttering the phrase. Now I didn’t know about the chance to win a SOLARLOK Service Kit by dropping off a business card.

From 24th EU PVSEC

And that completes a rather wordy Solar Light Flashes. The End.

©2010 GUNTHER Portfolio. All Rights Reserved.

iSuppli, your low ball 2009 Photovoltaic (PV) Forecast (Figure left, Source: iSuppli) of 3.9 GW (GigaWatts) needs a drastic revision upward.

The 24th EU PVSEC (European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition) was buzzing about how the German market is booming for solar installs in the later half of 2009. Falling solar module prices and the unadjusted 2009 Feed-in Tariffs promise low double digit returns on PV investments. The tide is not lifting all boats in a buyers market, but certain PV manufacturers are claiming to be sold out of solar modules again. In fact, besides overloaded installers, the utility EON does not think they can grid connect 35000 installations this year in Bavaria before the annual degression (or political revision?) of the Feed-in Tariffs (Source: “Netzbetreiber überlastet” by Katrin Petzold for photovoltaik in German only).

From 24th EU PVSEC

2009 PV demand appears to be anywhere from in line with the 5.8 GW of 2008 installs up to 6 or 7 GW. For example, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) is forecasting just over 6 GW for 2009, and Morgan Stanley forecast 6 to 7 GW of 2009 PV demand at the recent PV Taiwan.

This also means the iSuppli prediction in “First Solar’s market share set to soar” by Mark Osborne at PV-tech.org is also off on the math. If First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) does produce and sell 1.1 GW of PV modules in 2009, their market share would be about 15.7 to 18.3% (percent), not the up to 28% boasted by iSuppli.

Please note I am not saying there won’t be PV module oversupply and inventory build in 2009.

So what is the deal with the iSuppli website? I observe right mouse clicks have been disabled; I thought I needed to reboot my computer!

Per the iSuppli PV Perspectives: “Monthly Insight and Analysis of Critical PV Business Issues” (a locked pdf):

Magazines, e-Newsletters, and Blogs give you news paid for by advertisers. PV Perspectives offers thoughtfully analyzed, unbiased PV business topics. These topics are selected for their impact on the business of photovoltaics and not just to parrot press releases that flood the media.

I suppose this is in juxtaposition to iSuppli Forecasts that require monthly subscriptions to obtain corrected updates garnered from their rich datasets?

©2010 GUNTHER Portfolio. All Rights Reserved.

On Wednesday midway through the 24th EU PVSEC, I attended the 6th European Industry Forum titled Solar Photovoltaic Electricity: A mainstream power source in Europe by 2020. The PV Industry Forum has become a ritual since my first in Dresden.

After the introduction, my Canon FS11 camcorder was ready to record the excellent tag team presentation of the SET for 2020 Executive Summary by Dr. Winfried Hoffmann and Anton Milner. Was it rehearsed or have they just presented SET for 2020 many times before? The almost 35 minute presentation is split into four parts below conforming to YouTube video time limits.

I used SplitFuse and iMovie ’09 to prepare the videos. Video editing is time consuming and tedious. I’m looking forward to getting back to writing posts.

That the “New German government won’t slash solar power rates: source” by Erik Kirschbaum for Reuters is no big surprise. The Photovoltaic Industry is good business and an engine for job creation. Will the suggested 15% Feed-in Tariff (FiT) degression occur in 2011 or somehow be enacted in 2009? Changing the FiT midyear (in 2010) is unprecedented and not the way Germany does things.

©2010 GUNTHER Portfolio. All Rights Reserved.

When a quick search revealed a comment regarding Sol3g on the “CPV CEO Hotseat (Updated Oct 7)” Green Light blog post by Eric Wesoff for Greentech Media, my next post became clear.

Already owning a 25% stake in Sol3g, S.L., Abengoa Solar, S.A. acquired additional Sol3g founder shares and gained 78%+ majority control in 2008. This July, not long after Intersolar 2009 in Munich, Abengoa Solar decided to layoff most of the Sol3g staff (~90 people) including CEO Ricard Pardell leaving about five (5) people. As the above commenter noted, Mr. Pardell is another CPV CEO Hotseat veteran.

I observed something might be amiss when my follow up emails after Intersolar regarding the GiraSol GS700 and Sol3g ISFOC deployment status were not returned and later bounced.

As I understand it, Sol3g and Abengoa disagreed on whether deployments should be emphasized versus development efforts to improve and industrialize the CPV technology. Abengoa is supposed to have brought Sol3g development in house to their facilities.

From Dr. Pedro Banda, Director General of the ISFOC, I learned that Sol3g’s 2nd Phase ISFOC deployment is delayed until Abengoa completes the industrialization effort. However, the ISFOC deployment will move forward.

In addition to a portfolio of PV concentration technologies, Abengoa Solar is also an investor in Concentrix Solar and a joint venture partner in Concentrix Iberia S.A. (please see Concentrix Concentrator PhotoVoltaic System achieves 23% Efficiency).

I bumped into Ricard Pardell at the WATTPIC Energia Intel•ligent stand while touring the 24th EU PVSEC Exhibition. Mr. Pardell has joined WATTPIC as a partner and Sales and Marketing Director for the firm’s single and dual axis trackers. WATTPIC’s trackers adapt to strong winds using a weather vane effect turning into the wind until equalization is achieved. WATTPIC has embarked on an international expansion strategy focusing on North America, the Mediterranean, and Australia.

Although Mr. Pardell is still thinking about concentrators, he is content evangelizing the increased energy production (+43% for dual axis) of tracking solutions for silicon solar modules.

I was unable to obtain a response from Abengoa Solar about the Sol3g situation.

©2010 GUNTHER Portfolio. All Rights Reserved.

When I posted the 24th EU PVSEC: Photovoltaic Technical Highlights, I planned to include a YouTube video of Dr. Heinz Ossenbrink’s presentation. However, YouTube enforced their rigid 10 minute length policy even though the file size was well below 2GB (GigaBytes). So in two parts courtesy of iMovie ‘09, the videos below capture Dr. Ossenbrink’s presentation in his own words.

Once I had a perch established at stage right for effective recording, I also videoed the next speaker, Dr. Winfried Hoffman in his role as EPIA (European Photovoltaic Industry Association) President, present the Industry Summary of activities at the 24th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition.

Dr. Hoffmann focused on the 6th European PV Industry Forum and the SET For 2020 study conducted with AT Kearney. Subtitled “Solar Photovoltaic Electricity: A mainstream power source in Europe by 2020”, three scenarios for PV (Photovoltaic) deployment are considered with PV satisfying 4%, 6%, and 12% in the Paradigm Shift Scenario of European Union (EU) Electricity demand by 2020.

With about 10 GW (GigaWatt) of PV installed in the EU as of 2008, these scenarios target between 130 GW and 390 GW of cumulative installations in the EU by 2020. Even the 12% PV by 2020 Paradigm Shift Scenario =only= requires a 34% annual growth rate compared to a PV Industry average 45% annual growth rate over the past decade. Dr. Hoffmann noted Feed-in Tariffs should not be viewed as a burden but an investment for society since high growth drives the highest net present value from PV per the SET for 2020 study. He also highlighted the critical role of national PV associations over the next year to influence national actions plans implementing the EU 20/20/20 targets and support policies to drive PV and renewable energy adoption by 2020.

Select SET for 2020 Graphs and an Executive Summary are available for free download.

You don’t have to know German to realize the FUTURE IS SOLAR (Photovoltaics)!

From 24th EU PVSEC

My choice for best promotion at the 24th EU PVSEC was the SiG Solar banner ZUKUNFT IST SOLAR located at Hamburg’s central train station. Perhaps it should have been at the airport or along the Autobahn to educate the unconverted?

©2010 GUNTHER Portfolio. All Rights Reserved.

It isn’t an EU PVSEC Closing Session without Dr. Heinz Ossenbrink, Technical Programme Chairman, presenting his Conference Technical Highlights.

Dr. Ossenbrink’s presentation is captured as a Picasa slideshow above with the text via manual entry below for those using online search.

(Some) Highlights of the 24th European Photovoltaic Conference and Exhibition

Hamburg, Germany
21-25 September 2009

Dr. Heinz Ossenbrink
Technical Programme Chairman
European Commission, DG Joint Research Centre
Ispra, Italy

Advanced Photovoltaics
· New Triple Junction Concentrator cell record 41.1% @ 450x.
(Fraunhofer ISE, DE) Spectrolab 41.6% (Last Conference: 40.8%)
· Tandem Cells Using Quantum Dots All QD-Devices
Mostly SiO2 but also Si3N4. SiC (Green/ UNSW, AU)
· Strain-balanced Quantum-Well cells InGaAs, but also Si with 28%
(Imperial College, QuantoSol UK)

Advanced Photovoltaics (2)
· 34.1%, 4 –sub-cells with spectrum splitting (Fraunhofer ISE, DE)
· Optimising cells for site-specific spectra can increase energy yield by 10% (Concentrix, DE)
· 20% AC energy efficiency with Flatcon Modules (Concentrix, DE)
· MW installations (ISFOC, ES)

Advanced Photovoltaics (3)
· Organic Cells TPT Based Polymers (Thiophene-Phenylene), eta around 6%
(Uni Cung-Yuan, TW)
· Commercialisation & start-ups for DSSC (Konarka, US, 3GSolar, IL,
Dyesol, AU)
· 7%, 7-yr life targeted by 2011 (3GSolar, AU)
· Still test standards urgently needed.
organic cell tandems in particular

Wafer-Based Silicon Solar Cells and Materials
· Selective Emitter in mass production, 17.2%
avg. in production, module 16.5% (Suntech, CN)
· 96% waste water recovery (SAITA, IT)
· Continued Improvements of Materials, processing, costs, efficiency
· Honeycomb textured mc-Si cells, nanoimprint lithography (FhG-ISE, DE)
· Rear-contact amorphous/crystalline (HHZ, DE)
· Upgraded-MG Solar Cells 16% (CaliSolar, US)

Thin Films
· 15.7% on 30×30 CIS module. Plans for expansion up to 1GW (Showa Shell, JP)
· 12.3% CIGS in Production, 0.75m2 (Solibro, DE)
· Electron-beam deposited CSG minimodule with 7.8% (CSG, AU-DE)
· Very large (5.7 m2) a-Si/u-Si 8.24% efficient (Sontor, DE), or 8.75% (Sunfilm, DE)

Thin Films (2)
· Single Junction a-Si Records, 10.09% and 10.06% depending on 2 different types of ZnO-LPCVD, 1 cm3 (Oerlikon, CH)
· … or 9% by fast PECVD (UNSW, AU)
· Tandem a-Si/u-Si up to 12% (Sanyo, JP)
· Epitaxi TF concepts for up to 16.8% (IMEC, BE)

Components for PV Systems
· Solutions for smart PV energy management are coming, smart Energy Management, better integration of PV (INES et al , FR)
· European Standard EN 50530 for Inverters !!
· Finally a good comparison of outdoor performance of thin-film vs crystalline technologies for different European Sites (DG JRC, EU)

The lab comes to you: (Uni Winterthur, CH)

Components for PV Systems (2)
· CrystalClear: Novel module design for 16% (EU)
· Li-Ion Batteries Arrive! Higher h than PB
- (Conergy, DE)
· Performance of LEDs for Small Lanterns
– (ISE Freiburg, DE)
· The large European “performance” Project
Results maybe next year?

PV Systems
· Ever increasing number of LED-PV combinations, many application fields, including developing countries but also street lighting
· Li-Ion technology ready to surpass Lead-Acid? (Hokkaido Electric, JP)
· Practical results in Guadeloupe (SAFT, FR)
· Quality assurance for rural electrification addressed by some presentations
· We have good guidelines for PV System Performance Monitoring, Project Performance (many, EU)

PV Deployment
· The EU directive: shining or casting shadows on PV?
· 2.5% – 4% – 6% or 12% by 2020?
· 9 months to go to get PV into the Nationals Renewable Energy Action Plans!

A lot depends on DE, IT, ES and FR.

· Italy: total today 650 MW, end of the year 750MW
· France: strong growth expected with the new FiT

PV Deployment
Next years conference will be a different PV world…:

? End of Finance Crisis
? NREAPS
? New Governments in Germany
? US
? COP15 Copenhagen
? Feed-in Tariffs…

Well, I was back to the future again to the 21st EU PVSEC in Dresden since I had to type in the Technical Highlights. I was informed the presentation would be posted to the EU PVSEC website last Friday, yet nothing has appeared thus far, and I could not obtain a date commitment.

I have learned the hard way to take photos of slides as they are presented because there is never a guarantee the source material will be provided later.

©2010 GUNTHER Portfolio. All Rights Reserved.

24th EU PVSEC Poster Award Winners Group Photo

Bonus Video of Poster Award Ceremony now appended.

Poster Award Chairman Dr. Arnulf Jäger-Waldau mastered the Ceremony of Poster Awards during the closing session of the 24th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition.

991 or 92% of the 1081 posters accepted were presented as Visual Presentations at the conference. After thanking all the reviewers who gave their opinion judging the posters, Dr. Jäger-Waldau thought the Thin Film Solar Cells topic colleagues deserved a prize for perfect attendance in three out of four poster sessions.

Two (2) Posters each were awarded in the topic areas of Advanced Photovoltaics, Wafer-Based Silicon Solar Cells and Materials Technology, and Thin Film Solar Cells, one (1) poster each was awarded in Components for PV Systems and PV Deployment, while no poster was awarded in the PV Systems topic area.

The Poster Award winners arranged by topic area are as follows.

Topic 1 – Advanced Photovoltaics
T1.2 New Materials, Cells and Modules

1CV.3.46
J. de Wild, A. Meijerink, J. Rath, W.G.J.H.M. van Sark & R.E.I. Schropp
University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
Cell Concept for Thin Film a Si:H Solar Cells Including Photon Upconversion

1CV.3.68
Y. Kurokawa, S. Tomita, S. Miyajima, A. Yamada & M. Konagai
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
Effects of Nitrogen on the Electrical Properties of Si Quantum Dots Superlattice Using a-SiC Matrix

Topic 2 – Wafer-Based Silicon Solar Cells and Materials Technology
T2.1 Silicon Feedstock, Crystallisation and Wafering
T2.3 Handling Issues and Manufacturing Automation

2CV.1.81
W. Warta, J. Hohl-Ebinger, A. Ohm & K. Kordelos
Fraunhofer ISE, Freiburg, Germany
R. Adelhelm & D. Berger
BERGER Lichttechnik, Pullach, Germany
H.-P. Hartmann & D.-H. Neuhaus
Deutsche Cell, Freiberg, Germany
M. Wald & T. Kieliba
ersol Solar Energy, Erfurt, Germany
H. Albert
h.a.l.m. elektronik, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
B. Hund & J. Isenberg
Q-Cells, Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Germany
H. Nagel & J. Fölsch
SCHOTT Solar, Alzenau, Germany
P. Grabitz & W. Lattwein
SOLARWATT Cells, Heilbronn, Germany
Precise Measurement of Solar Cell Performance in Production

Topic 2 – Wafer-Based Silicon Solar Cells and Materials Technology
T2.2 Mono- and Multicrystalline Silicon Materials and Cells

2CV.2.78
M. Taguchi, Y. Tsunomura, H. Inoue, S. Taira, T. Nakashima, T. Baba, H. Sakata & E. Maruyama
Sanyo Electric, Kobe, Japan
High Efficiency HIT Solar Cell on Thin (<100 μm) Silicon Wafer

Topic 3 – Thin Film Solar Cells
T3.1 Thin Film Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells and Wafer Equivalents

3AV.1.38
Z. Ouyang, O. Kunz, P. Campbell, S. Varlamov, S. Pillai & M.A. Green
University of NSW, Sydney, Australia
F. Beck & K.R. Catchpole
The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
Enhanced Photocurrent in Evaporated Solid-Phase-Crystallised Poly-Si Thin-Film Solar Cells Using Rear Surface Plasmons

Topic 3 – Thin Film Solar Cells
T3.3 CIS and Other (II-VI) Ternary Thin Film Solar Cells
T3.4 CdTe Solar Cells

3BV.5.71
M. Topic & K. Brecl
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
J. R. Sites
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, USA
From Small-Area Cell to Large-Area Module Performance – Role of Inhomogeneities in Thin Film Photovoltaics

Topic 4 – Components for PV Systems
T4.1 PV Modules

4AV.3.49
J. Berghold, S. Pingel, O. Frank, T. Geipel & Y. Frey
SOLON, Berlin, Germany
Mechanical Stability of Solar Cells within Solar Panels

Topic 6 – PV Deployment
T6.2 Enablers for PV Development and Benefits of PV

6DV.3.19
B. Ghosh & S. Bardhan
University of Jadavpur, Kolkata, India
Analysis on the Integration of PV Power at Eco-Tourism Site

A few winners appeared quite surprised although all the winners were present for Friday’s Closing Session. Perhaps everyone was aware of the poster award forfeiture at the 23rd EU PVSEC as a result of the team’s absence at the Closing Session?

Congratulations again to the poster award winners and all the poster participants.

Bonus Video

©2010 GUNTHER Portfolio. All Rights Reserved.