Solar grade silicon feedstock supply for PV industry

Woditsch, Peter; Koch, Wolfgang

doi:10.1016/s0927-0248(01)00146-5

Cited by 200 publications

(92 citation statements)

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“…The amount of silicon used per watt of PV module has fallen by a factor of 1.5 over the period Woditsch and Koch, 2002;Swanson, 2006). Manufacturers have accomplished this change by reducing the thickness of silicon wafers from 500µm to 250µm and by reducing kerf losses, from the sawing of each wafer, from 250µm to 190µm.…”

Section: Silicon Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Well Does Learning-By-Doing Explain Cost Reductions in a Carbon-Free Energy Technology?

Nemet

2006

SSRN Journal

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SummaryThe incorporation of experience curves has enhanced the treatment of technological change in models used to evaluate the cost of climate and energy policies. However, the set of activities that experience curves are assumed to capture is much broader than the set that can be characterized by learning-by-doing, the primary connection between experience curves and economic theory. How accurately do experience curves describe observed technological change? This study examines the case of photovoltaics (PV), a potentially important climate stabilization technology with robust technology dynamics. Empirical data are assembled to populate a simple engineering-based model identifying the most important factors affecting the cost of PV over the past three decades. The results indicate that learning from experience only weakly explains change in the most important cost-reducing factors-plant size, module efficiency, and the cost of silicon. They point to other explanatory variables to include in future models. Future work might also evaluate the potential for efficiency gains from policies that rely less on 'riding down the learning curve' and more on creating incentives for firms to make investments in the types of cost-reducing activities quantified in this study. Keywords: Learning-by-doing, Experience Curves, Learning Curves, Climate Policy JEL Classification: O31, Q42, Q48, Q55 Discussions with Arnulf Grübler at the International Institute for Applied SystemsAnalysis (IIASA) were extremely helpful in the early stages of this project. I also gratefully acknowledge Brian Arthur, Severin Borenstein, Martin Green, Bronwyn Hall, Daniel Kammen, Robert Margolis, Paul Maycock, David Mowery, and Chihiro Watanabe for providing valuable comments at various stages. I thank the U.S. National Academies for financial support while I was at IIASA. This paper was presented at the EAERE-FEEM-VIU Summer School on "Computable General Equilibrium Modeling in Environmental and Resource Economics", held in Venice from June 25th to July 1st, 2006 and supported by the Marie Curie Series of Conferences "European Summer School in Resource and Environmental Economics". Address for correspondence:Gregory F. Nemet Energy and Resources Group University of California 310 Barrows Hall 3050 Berkeley CA 94720-3050 USA E-mail: gnemet@berkeley.edu Technological change and learning curvesThe rate and direction of future technological change in energy technologies are important sources of uncertainty in models that assess the costs of stabilizing the climate (Edenhofer et al., 2006). 1 Treatment of technology dynamics in integrated assessment models has become increasingly sophisticated (Grubb et al., 2002) as models have incorporated lessons from the economics of innovation and as increased processing power and improved algorithms have enabled optimization of phenomena, such as increasing returns, which in the past had made computation unwieldy (Messner, 1997). Yet the representation of technological change in large energy-economic model rema...

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Section: Silicon Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Well Does Learning-By-Doing Explain Cost Reductions in a Carbon-Free Energy Technology?

Nemet

2006

SSRN Journal

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“…Before 2000, more than 80% of polysilicon produced was consumed by the semiconductor industry, with the PV industry relying on "off-spec" material (material that does not meet the stringent electronic-grade purity required for integrated circuits) remaining from the electronic wafer production process [17,23]. With the growth in PV module demand over the last decade, and the associated emergence of dedicated solar-grade polysilicon production to meet that demand, this situation has almost completely reversed.…”

Section: Polysilicon Market Evolution and Volatilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

System Dynamics of Polysilicon for Solar Photovoltaics: A Framework for Investigating the Energy Security of Renewable Energy Supply Chains

et al. 2018

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Renewable energy, produced with widely available low-cost energy resources, is often included as a component of national strategies to address energy security and sustainability. Market and political forces cannot disrupt the sun or wind, unlike oil and gas supplies. However, the cost of renewable energy is highly dependent on technologies manufactured through global supply chains in leading manufacturing countries. The countries that contribute to the global supply chains may take actions that, directly or indirectly, influence global access to materials and components. For example, high-purity polysilicon, a key material in solar photovoltaics, has experienced significant price fluctuations, affecting the manufacturing capacity and cost of both polysilicon and solar panels. This study developed and validated an initial system dynamics framework to gain insights into global trade in polysilicon. The model represents an initial framework for exploration. Three regions were modeled-China, the United States, and the rest of the world-for a range of trade scenarios to understand the impacts of import duties and non-price drivers on the relative volumes of imports and domestic supply. The model was validated with the historical case of China imposing an import duty on polysilicon from the United States, the European Union, and South Korea, which altered the regional flows of polysilicon-in terms of imports, exports, and domestic production-to varying degrees. As expected, the model tracked how regional demand shares and influx volumes decrease as a duty on a region increases. Using 2016 as a reference point, in the scenarios examined for U.S. exports to China, each 10% increase in the import duty results in a 40% decrease in import volume. The model also indicates that, under the scenarios investigated, once a duty has been imposed on a region, the demand share from that region declines and does not achieve pre-duty levels, even as global demand increases. Adding additional countries and other components in the photovoltaic supply chain (panels, cells, wafers) to this model could enable policymakers to better understand the relative impact of trade measures across the entire photovoltaic module manufacturing supply chain and the conditions that encourage industry evolution and competitiveness.

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“…Up to now, the PV industry has relied upon Si scraps (known as Solar Grade Silicon-SGS), from microelectronic Si producers. 18,19 At the turn of the century, the microelectronic industry faced a sudden fall in demand due to an end in 'new economy' speculations, whilst the PV industry began its expansion. Manufacturers sold electronic Si to PV cell producers, which on the other hand depended only on these feedstocks, without making efforts to build an independent source of SGS.…”

Section: Towards a New World-energy Scenariomentioning

confidence: 99%

The potential of III‐V semiconductors as terrestrial photovoltaic devices

Bosi

Pelosi

2006

Progress in Photovoltaics

177

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III-V semiconductors, GaAs and in particular InGaP, are used in many different electronic applications, such as high power and high frequency devices, laser diodes and high brightness LED. Their direct bandgap and high reliability make them ideal candidates for the realisation of high efficiency solar cells: in the past years they have been successfully used as power sources for satellites in space, where they are able to produce electricity from sunlight with an overall efficiency of around 30%. Nowadays, the use of arsenides and phosphides as photovoltaic (PV) devices is confined only to space applications since their price is much higher than conventional Si flat panel modules, the leading PV market technology. But with the introduction of multijunction solar cells capable of operating in high concentration solar light, the area and, therefore, the cost of these cells can be reduced and will eventually find an application and market also on Earth. This article will review the situation of semiconductor solar cell materials, focusing on Si, GaAs, InGaP and multijunction solar cells and will discuss future trends and possibilities of bringing III-V technology from space to Earth

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Solar grade silicon feedstock supply for PV industry

Cited by 200 publications

References 0 publications

How Well Does Learning-By-Doing Explain Cost Reductions in a Carbon-Free Energy Technology?

How Well Does Learning-By-Doing Explain Cost Reductions in a Carbon-Free Energy Technology?

System Dynamics of Polysilicon for Solar Photovoltaics: A Framework for Investigating the Energy Security of Renewable Energy Supply Chains

The potential of III‐V semiconductors as terrestrial photovoltaic devices

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