Michael Woodhouse

Residential, Commercial, and Utility-Scale Photovoltaic (PV) System Prices in the United States: Current Drivers and Cost-Reduction Opportunities

The price of photovoltaic (PV) systems in the United States (i.e., the cost to the system owner) has dropped precipitously in recent years, led by substantial reductions in global PV module prices. However, system cost reductions are not necessarily realized or realized in a timely manner by many customers. Many reasons exist for the apparent disconnects between installation costs, component prices, and system prices; most notable is the impact of fair market value considerations on system prices. To guide policy and research and development strategy decisions, it is necessary to develop a granular perspective on the factors that underlie PV system prices and to eliminate subjective pricing parameters. This reports analysis of the overnight capital costs (cash purchase) paid for PV systems attempts to establish an objective methodology that most closely approximates the book value of PV system assets.

Terawatt-scale photovoltaics: Trajectories and challenges

Coordinating technology, policy, and business innovations The annual potential of solar energy far exceeds the worlds total energy consumption. However, the vision of photovoltaics (PVs) providing a substantial fraction of global electricity generation and total energy demand is far from being realized. What technical, infrastructure, economic, and policy barriers need to be overcome for PVs to grow to the multiple terawatt (TW) scale? We assess realistic future scenarios and make suggestions for a global agenda to move toward PVs at a multi-TW scale.

Assessing the drivers of regional trends in solar photovoltaic manufacturing

The photovoltaic (PV) industry has grown rapidly as a source of energy and economic activity. Since 2008, the average manufacturer-sale price of PV modules has declined by over a factor of two, coinciding with a significant increase in the scale of manufacturing in China. Using a bottom-up model for wafer-based silicon PV, we examine both historical and future factory-location decisions from the perspective of a multinational corporation. Our model calculates the cost of PV manufacturing with process step resolution, while considering the impact of corporate financing and operations with a calculation of the minimum selling price that provides an adequate rate of return. We quantify the conditions of Chinas historical PV price advantage, examine if these conditions can be reproduced elsewhere, and evaluate the role of innovative technology in altering regional competitive advantage. We find that the historical price advantage of a China-based factory relative to a U.S.-based factory is not driven by country-specific advantages, but instead by scale and supply-chain development. Looking forward, we calculate that technology innovations may result in effectively equivalent minimum sustainable manufacturing prices for the two locations. In this long-run scenario, the relative share of module shipping costs, as well as other factors, may promote regionalization of module-manufacturing operations to cost-effectively address local market demand. Our findings highlight the role of innovation, importance of manufacturing scale, and opportunity for global collaboration to increase the installed capacity of PV worldwide.

Supply-chain dynamics of tellurium, indium and gallium within the context of PV module manufacturing costs

If humankind is to implement more sustainable energy choices, it will be crucial for energy systems such as photovoltaics (PV) to demonstrate success both soon and over the long-term quest. To that end, both the crystalline silicon and thin-film technologies have made, and continue to make, remarkable strides toward providing solutions that are quickly becoming more competitive against the traditional sources for power generation. But, within the thin-film segment of this industry the highest demonstrated sunlight power conversion efficiencies have thus far come from material sets containing relatively rare constituent elements. These include tellurium in the cadmium telluride technology, and indium and/ or gallium in the CIS/copper indium gallium diselenide and III-V families of technologies. In this paper we show that the current global supply base for these three energy-critical elements is not sufficient for enabling energy-significant levels of PV deployment, but also show that each of the thin-film PV technologies that are described has an ability to absorb potential increases in the price for these constituent element(s). This ability then leads to the possibility that the supply base for each element can be augmented.Given the need for humankind to implement more sustainable energy choices, it is crucial for energy systems such as PV to demonstrate success both soon and over the long-term quest for meaningful deployment. To that end, both the crystalline silicon and thin-film technologies have made, and continue to make, remarkable strides toward providing solutions that are quickly becoming more competitive against the traditional sources for power generation. But, within the thin-film segment of this industry, the highest demonstrated sunlight power conversion efficiencies have thus far come from technologies containing relatively rare constituent elements. These include tellurium in cadmium telluride, and indium and/or gallium in the CIS/ CIGS and III–V families of technologies. In this paper we show that the current global supply base for these three energy-critical elements is not sufficient for enabling energy-significant levels of deployment, but also show that every one of the thin-film PV technologies that we describe has the ability to absorb an increase in the price for each constituent element(s). This ability then leads to the possibility that the supply base for each element can be augmented.

Economic Measurements of Polysilicon for the Photovoltaic Industry: Market Competition and Manufacturing Competitiveness

Several economic metrics are presented for polysilicon in the solar photovoltaics (PV) industry. The overall level of market competition through exploration of the Herfindahl-Hirschman index and consolidation for the current polysilicon industry is quantified. In addition, for several international manufacturing locations, the most recent results in bottoms-up manufacturing cost and price modeling are shown for Siemens hydrochlorination (solar-grade), Siemens hyperpure, and fluidized bed reactor production of polysilicon. Finally, the entry barrier, which is defined as the upfront capital requirements to become a competitively sized facility, is quantified for todays polysilicon industry.

An economic analysis of photovoltaics versus traditional energy sources: Where are we now and where might we be in the near future?

A precipitous drop in the price of the crystalline silicon solar photovoltaic (PV) modules typically employed for residential applications has recently been observed: The typical sales price for modules was around

A bottom-up cost analysis of a high concentration PV module

4/WP DC in 2008 but could easily approach

Spatially Resolved Current-Voltage Measurements-Evidence for Nonuniform Photocurrents in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

1.50/W WP DC by the end of this year1. As module price declines continue, and as gains are also realized in balance-of-system costs, the economics of PV systems for power generation become increasingly competitive. In this presentation, we will examine whether solar will reach grid parity in the United States if monocrystalline silicon modules achieve an optimistic-case scenario in efficiency and cost. The analysis suggests that PV systems are already economically viable in select markets, but further cost reductions and efficiency improvements above and beyond the monocrystalline optimistic-case scenarios are necessary in order to be competitive against incumbent electricity production in most markets across the United States.

Low-Cost CdTe/Silicon Tandem Solar Cells

We present a bottom-up model of III-V multi-junction cells, as well as a high concentration PV (HCPV) module. We calculate

Cost and potential of monolithic CIGS photovoltaic modules

0.59/W(DC) manufacturing costs for our model HCPV module design with today’s capabilities, and find that reducing cell costs and increasing module efficiency offer the most promising paths for future cost reductions. Cell costs could be significantly reduced via substrate reuse and improved manufacturing yields.