Changes in PV and What It Means for Transparent Conductors

Published: January 26, 2012    Category: Advanced Materials Renewable Energy

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Optimistically, we think that internal technology transitions in the PV industry will yield new opportunities for those coatings firms that know where to look for them. TC materials used in thin-film PV are not a settled matter across the sector.  New suppliers entering the TC space in PV are often not battling entrenched materials and entrenched suppliers. And, in NanoMarkets opinion, this opportunity can only get better over time, since with subsidies removed firms are more likely to come up with innovative new types of solar panels with even more uncertain TC requirements.

The importance of flexible PV to opportunities for TCs: TFPV and organic PV are also diversifying, with increasing proportions of flexible products and new approaches to reducing costs.  These trends include the increasing importance of building-integrated PV (BIPV) types, which are at least partially flexible, and of flexible versions of OPV and/or DSC PV.

As these changes in the industry occur, there will be new opportunities for suppliers of other transparent conductors.  Flexible products will take their toll on ITO and the other TCOs, and additional opportunities for more flexible materials—conductive polymers and nanomaterial-based films—will emerge.  Similarly, the high cost of vacuum deposition for even relatively cheap, indium-free TCO materials will support the development of printed or coated alternatives—using the same conductive polymers and nanomaterials—simply to enable reductions in manufacturing costs and to enable production of low-end/low-cost “disposable” PV cells for use in the growing, ubiquitous printed electronics industry.

Why Cost is So Important in PV

Cost has always been important in PV applications; a central thesis, after all, is that PV can be a more eco-friendly alternative to carbon-based fuels.  And PV technology has a way to go to meet its goal of parity with conventional energy generation technologies for on-grid applications. Note, for example, that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) says that thin-film solar production costs need to be reduced by as much as 75 percent—down to under $50 per square meter or less than 5 cents per watt—before cost-effective distributed power and utility-scale production of electricity from TFPV can be realized on a widespread basis.

The pressures for low cost exist throughout the PV industry, but are arguably most intense in TF-Si PV. As a mature technology, TF-Si has already exhausted many of its options for cost reduction through economies of scale, and hence panel makers are now left to target bill of materials (BOM) and manufacturing cost reductions. For this reason, ITO is disappearing in favor of lower-cost TCOs.
As noted above, the CdTe PV industry already uses FTO as a low-cost alternative to ITO. And cost pressures across the PV industry may now encourage those panel makers that are still using ITO in CIGS, OPV, and DSC PV to make the switch toward lower-cost TCOs.

Eventually, even alternative TCOs will be seen in some cases as too costly.  When this occurs, manufacturers will thus renew their interest in other materials, particularly if they don’t involve the costly vacuum deposition equipment used for TCOs.  And this opportunity applies not only to TF-Si, but across the other TFPV types as well.

In summary, overall, the TFPV sector is still far from mature. In many sub-categories, it has yet to settle on TC materials.  For example, the struggling (but still big) thin-film Si PV sector has turned toward FTO, CIGS PV uses mostly AZO, and FTO is already standard in CdTe PV. These sectors have turned to different TC options not solely because of performance, but also because of the need to reduce costs. This fact, in turn, indicates that there are real opportunities for suppliers of alternative TCs to make the case for their materials on a cost-savings basis.

Even with this potential, however, NanoMarkets believes that capitalizing on the opportunities will require a serious rethinking of how money is going to be made in TCs for PV applications.  A more active business development program is required—one that is designed to convince TFPV players that costs can be reduced without sacrificing performance using a particular TC material. In the near- to mid-term, this means alternative, indium-free TCOs, and in the long-term less expensive nanomaterial-based alternatives make sense.

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