1 Introduction
7
costs, forced many companies to stop activities, in particular companies with low
production volumes.
This did not prevent mass industrialisation to continue with a further volume
growth of around 25% per year in the decade starting in 2010. Indeed, the low
price of modules led to lower and lower electricity prices, triggering further market
development. The mark of 100 GW p annual PV module production was reached in
2018, with the strongest market share (95%) for crystalline silicon, and the remaining
5% for thin-films led by CdTe, followed by CIGS and thin-film silicon.
The most striking feature of PV market development is the evolution of the PV
module prices, illustrated in Fig. 1.4a. The price per Watt-peak has gone down a factor
of 35 since the 1990’s, reaching today prices the range of 20–30 Eurocents per W p for
standard PV modules. From the 1980’s to now, the average reduction rate is between
20 and 24%. This means 20–24% reduction in module price for each doubling of
cumulative production. The price decrease, dictated by offer and demand, reflects
directly the manufacturing costs: standard PV modules have now become commodities with a low profit margin and a strongly competitive environment. Hence, there
is an excellent correlation between selling price and manufacturing costs.
The low modules prices, a similar reduction in the costs of inverters, and partially
on the engineering and mounting costs, have brought PV electricity to an amazingly
low price. With total investments in the range of 50–70 ects/W p , large, groundmounted, solar parks can now produce electricity at 3.6–4.5 ects/kWh in Central
Europe and as low as 1.8–2.7 ects/kWh in sunnier regions.
1.4 Photovoltaics: Manufacturing Chain and Efficiency
Increases
In addition to sheer volume effects, each solar technology benefits from continuous
improvements linked to R&D, and can gain from developments made for other sectors. For instance, silicon technologies benefited originally from the immense amount
of work done in microelectronics. One reason for the success of c-Si technologies
can be found in the ease with which the manufacturing chain for c-Si from sand to
module, can be split into individual production facilities, as illustrated in Fig. 1.5.
Each step can indeed be optimised independently, with improvements almost on
a daily basis, at the levels of polysilicon purification, ingot manufacturing, wafer
casting or pulling, wafer sawing, solar cell processing, and module lamination.
Another key feature of the c-Si industry is the continuous increase in module
efficiency. Over the last decade, an absolute efficiency improvement of 0.3–0.4%
per year has taken place both for mono- and multicrystalline Si, as illustrated in
Fig. 1.4b. This progress was first obtained using the so-called Aluminium Al-Back
surface field (Al-BSF) process illustrated in Fig. 1.5, and continued by a shift to the
PERC (passivated emitter and rear contact) technology. In 2020, the following typical
average efficiencies were obtained for commercial PERC mono-crystalline products:
7
costs, forced many companies to stop activities, in particular companies with low
production volumes.
This did not prevent mass industrialisation to continue with a further volume
growth of around 25% per year in the decade starting in 2010. Indeed, the low
price of modules led to lower and lower electricity prices, triggering further market
development. The mark of 100 GW p annual PV module production was reached in
2018, with the strongest market share (95%) for crystalline silicon, and the remaining
5% for thin-films led by CdTe, followed by CIGS and thin-film silicon.
The most striking feature of PV market development is the evolution of the PV
module prices, illustrated in Fig. 1.4a. The price per Watt-peak has gone down a factor
of 35 since the 1990’s, reaching today prices the range of 20–30 Eurocents per W p for
standard PV modules. From the 1980’s to now, the average reduction rate is between
20 and 24%. This means 20–24% reduction in module price for each doubling of
cumulative production. The price decrease, dictated by offer and demand, reflects
directly the manufacturing costs: standard PV modules have now become commodities with a low profit margin and a strongly competitive environment. Hence, there
is an excellent correlation between selling price and manufacturing costs.
The low modules prices, a similar reduction in the costs of inverters, and partially
on the engineering and mounting costs, have brought PV electricity to an amazingly
low price. With total investments in the range of 50–70 ects/W p , large, groundmounted, solar parks can now produce electricity at 3.6–4.5 ects/kWh in Central
Europe and as low as 1.8–2.7 ects/kWh in sunnier regions.
1.4 Photovoltaics: Manufacturing Chain and Efficiency
Increases
In addition to sheer volume effects, each solar technology benefits from continuous
improvements linked to R&D, and can gain from developments made for other sectors. For instance, silicon technologies benefited originally from the immense amount
of work done in microelectronics. One reason for the success of c-Si technologies
can be found in the ease with which the manufacturing chain for c-Si from sand to
module, can be split into individual production facilities, as illustrated in Fig. 1.5.
Each step can indeed be optimised independently, with improvements almost on
a daily basis, at the levels of polysilicon purification, ingot manufacturing, wafer
casting or pulling, wafer sawing, solar cell processing, and module lamination.
Another key feature of the c-Si industry is the continuous increase in module
efficiency. Over the last decade, an absolute efficiency improvement of 0.3–0.4%
per year has taken place both for mono- and multicrystalline Si, as illustrated in
Fig. 1.4b. This progress was first obtained using the so-called Aluminium Al-Back
surface field (Al-BSF) process illustrated in Fig. 1.5, and continued by a shift to the
PERC (passivated emitter and rear contact) technology. In 2020, the following typical
average efficiencies were obtained for commercial PERC mono-crystalline products: