BIPV Encapsulation Markets Preview

The PV market is undergoing dramatic change as the industry transitions from one of generous subsidies to one with dwindling subsidies, dramatically reduced prices, reduced margins, and anticipated massive consolidation. As the PV module market shifts towards a commodity business model with associated mergers, and many players are weeded out of the panel area, which dominates the overall solar industry, there are many in the industry looking for new business models with greater opportunities for high margin growth. 

NanoMarkets believes that one of the areas of high growth for solar PV is in building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV).This new wave of BIPV products represents an attractive opportunity for new encapsulation materials.  The current materials for flexible modules are relatively expensive to manufacture compared to the glass used in rigid modules. However, for BIPV applications, where product lifetimes are 20-30 years, they represent a good value proposition for high-end applications today, and will have much wider appeal as costs come down.  The larger opportunities will be in the newest generation of materials, which promise to reduce costs without reducing product lifetimes.

The Coming of Age of the DSC Market

NanoMarkets believes that 2012 will be the year that dye sensitized cell (DSC) photovoltaics grows into itself and begins to capitalize on the available opportunities despite overall weakness in the PV market.  In this article we examine a few of the factors that the industry and interested investors may be ignoring.  

Reexamining Silver In Photovoltiacs

Over the past several years the photovoltaics (PV) market has been the single largest consumer of silver printing pastes, beating out even the big traditional markets like printed circuit boards and polymer thick-film membrane switches. But as the PV sector enters a period of flat or moderate growth in the next couple of years, the industry remains highly cost sensitive, and government subsidies are waning. Meanwhile, the ongoing shift in market share toward thin-film PV (TFPV) is changing the nature of the addressable market for silver materials in PV.   

There is some good news, however as most of the opportunities center on providing new silver-based products that help the panel makers reduce manufacturing costs.  Examples are: new silver printing pastes with reduced silver loadings that do not sacrifice performance; new printable silver materials that enable the fabrication of finer resolution silver traces; and new nanosilver-based options that enable low-cost, solution-processable and/or printable fabrication of transparent front electrodes.

Changes in the PV Market that May Influence the Adoption of Smart Coatings

NanoMarkets continues to believe that there are opportunities for commercialization of smart coatings in the photovoltaics (PV) sector, even though the PV market is quite different today than it was just a year ago, both from an economic and a political perspective.

Changes in the Photovoltaics Market for Transparent Conductors

NanoMarkets' eight-year forecasts suggest that the market for transparent conductors (TCs) in both inorganic and organic thin-film photovoltaics (TFPV) applications will be about $90 million in 2012 and grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 30 percent to a value of over $635 million by the end of the forecast period in 2019. NanoMarkets anticipates this growth despite the current difficult overall environment for PV, in which government subsidies are under threat and in which there are huge pressures to reduce TFPV costs to make TFPV competitive with c-Si PV and with other sources of energy in general.

The Aesthetic and Cost Promise of BIPV

Building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) is one of the biggest hopes for turning PV into a substantial industry that might eventually be self-sustaining without government subsidies.

Changes in PV and What It Means for Transparent Conductors

NanoMarkets anticipates significant challenges to the status quo in the photovoltaics (PV) market in the coming decade. The PV sector as a whole is entering a period of flat or moderate growth in the next couple of years, and the industry remains highly cost sensitive. Meanwhile, the ongoing shift in market share toward thin-film PV (TFPV) is changing the accepted landscape of available PV technologies. This movement, in turn, is causing a shift in demand for transparent conductors (TCs) in PV applications from market-dominant crystalline silicon (c-Si) PV that uses little or no TCs to TFPV that, in most cases, requires the use of high performance TC electrodes.

Reality Check On CIGS PV

After years of results that have been disappointing compared to consensus expectations,  it is high time to take a sober look at the market for CIGS going forward in light of the current state of the technology and competitiveness of CIGS compared to other PV technologies.  Other factors playing into the mix are the likelihood of decreased subsidies for PV going forward in North America and Europe, and the effect of significant increases in known reserves of natural gas, which have lowered and stabilized prices compared to the volatility and high prices seen in the 2007-2008 timeframe.

Konarka and Krupp:  Together At Last

The recent announcement that Konarka Technologies, leader in the organic PV (OPV) space, has teamed with the ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe is a potential game changer for OPV.  Interest in OPV remains strong; new firms, new capacity and new products. Yet that OPV has not fulfilled its early promise is a conclusion that remains inescapable.  It was always understood that OPV would be low efficiency, but this was supposed to be compensated for by low dollars per watt too.  But it hasn’t happened.

The BIPV Value Proposition

Building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) is a new and dynamic market, with complex sub-markets, and very different market entities pulling diverse BIPV technologies into use. As an extension of the global photovoltaics (PV) market, both large established PV module suppliers as well as small niche architectural firms are trying to push BIPV into the market. Historically, the volumes sold of BIPV products—relative to PV products as a whole—have been low due to both a lack of demand and a lack of dedicated products for the building industry.  However, NanoMarkets believes that the demand for BIPV would have been greater had dedicated products been more widely available.

Can OPV Be Saved?

The organic photovoltaics (OPV) business faces major challenges going forward, indeed, it is fair to say  that its entire survival is in question.   In researching this report we have come across  the view that  OPV  is  essentially doomed to—at best—become a  cottage industry providing niche solar products for  campers, the military and so on.   Such an industry, it is claimed, would never put out more than a few MW of solar products; that is in a PV industry that in total will soon produce panels with aggregate  performance measured in the tens of Gigawatts.  But we are struck by the fact that this view runs counter to what we continue to see in the industry, which is more investment, new companies and new products.

DSC in the Competitive PV Marketplace

Although early proponents of dye-sensitized cells (DSC) dreamed of a future in which DSC would compete primarily on cost, it now seems that this future is unlikely to come about.  As far as we can tell, First Solar is today's cost leader in the PV space and the company's CdTe panels also perform better than DSC.  Since the end of the silicon shortage, crystalline-silicon PV costs have fallen considerably and may even eventually approach the inorganic thin films in terms of cost.   As a result, NanoMarkets believes, DSC now has a limited amount of time to prove itself as a low-cost PV technology with reasonable claims to performance.  As we discuss in depth below, in the past couple of years DSC firms have been showing performance that brings them close to a-Si PV.  But the prospects for radical cost reduction look less hopeful and the manufacturers of other PV technologies are encroaching on the sub-$1 per watt "territory" DSC once assumed that it and pure OPV would own.

How Long Can TCOs Reign in the PV World and What Comes Next?

The market for transparent conductors sold into the photovoltaics (PV) sector for electrodes is currently made up of transparent conducting oxides (TCOs), including indium tin oxide (ITO).  PV, however, is the first major high-performance application for transparent conductors to largely shake its dependence on ITO in favor of less-costly TCOs, mainly tin oxide- and zinc oxide-based materials.  This places the PV industry in the somewhat comfortable position of having relatively few cost incentives for making changes to the transparent conductors used; the status quo—TCOs—are already cheap.

How Smart Coatings Can Add Value to PV

The largest traditional opportunity for smart coatings firms in the PV space appears to be in the area of self-cleaning coatings. While the revenues from self-cleaning coatings sales into the PV market are tiny at the present time, we think they could reach $280 million by the end of the forecast period.  The reason why this counts as a “traditional” application is that it speaks directly to increasing conversion efficiencies; a clean panel is an efficient panel! With self-cleaning smart coatings, PV panels can avoid the dirt buildup that can cause competitive panels to drop in conversion efficiency and power output.

Opportunities in Thin-Film PV Materials

Despite the end of the silicon shortage and the economic problems that beset much of the developed world, and the construction industry in particular, the prospects for thin-film photovoltaics (TFPV) still look quite good.  The thin-film silicon sector is recovering from a bad couple of years as it has both adapted to the end of the silicon shortage and weeded out non-productive suppliers.  First Solar, which dominates the CdTe sector, seems to have survived the downturn quite nicely.  And the CIGS sector, while it has yet to keep its promise of high-efficiency with all the advantages of conventional solar panels, at least is still keeping that promise alive.  In addition, while the end of the silicon shortage may have got rid of one of the main reasons why TFPV experienced a boom in the first place, the fact that TFPV can offer flexible PV products for building-integrated PV (BIPV) applications is a new reason why TFPV might be chosen over conventional PV.

Encapsulation Opportunities for OPV and DSC

Organic PV (OPV) and Dye Sensitized Cell (DSC) PV have arguably been the two PV technologies that have struggled the most when it comes to making progress toward high-volume commercialization.  This is for several reasons including cost, conversion efficiency, and durability.  In direct competition with inorganic thin-film PV and crystalline silicon PV, OPV and DSC simply cannot compare on these fronts.  Instead, OPV and DSC are being forced to compete in lower-volume areas where their unique advantages (mentioned below) exclude competitive PV technologies in some way, and cost and conversion efficiency are less critical factors. 

How BIPV Can Save the Photovoltaics Business

NanoMarkets has been tracking the photovoltaics industry and believes it is at a crossroads.  A combination of factors now threaten to send the PV industry, kicking and screaming, back to the days when it catered to no more than a niche market.  At the same time, PV technology is maturing and there is a growing realization that standard PV panels are becoming commoditized. 

The Thin-Film Silicon Perspective

To remain relevant, TF Si PV needs a breakthrough in cost or efficiency to compete long term with the other TFPV technologies.  On the absorber material front, the move from tandem junction cells containing Germanium to tandem cells with microcrystalline silicon as the lower absorber are a good first step to reducing cost/watt.  Silane demand will grow as microcrystalline silicon becomes the lower absorber material of choice. 

Material Markets for Thin-Film Photovoltaics - 2011 & Beyond

Supercapacitors and Market Opportunities

BIPV Markets in Asia

No longer is PV installation a simple matter of the cost of the panels versus the value of the electricity generated.  Building Integrated PV (BIPV) it is an integral part of building design and style.   Arguably, Japan has been the country that initiated the BIPV market, with its early use of a form of BIPV technology; small solar “tiles” integrated into rooftops.  However, as NanoMarkets discusses in its recent study of BIPV markets in general, BIPV technology has progressed significantly since then and now consists of well-differentiated rigid, flexible and transparent building products.

BIPV Markets

Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) is still a fledgling business and although a wide variety of BIPV products are now on offer the volumes sold are still low.  Nonetheless, BIPV has the potential to change the terms of reference for the solar panel industry in a number of ways.  From the demand side of the equation, BIPV improves the aesthetics of PV and could potentially reduce the total costs of constructing home, offices and factories utilizing solar panels.  Both these factors potentially open up new addressable markets.  From the supply perspective, BIPV offers new ways for PV panel suppliers to distinguish themselves in the marketplace.  Specifically, it becomes easier for panel makers to show that their products are different from "plain vanilla" panels and also (if they wish) to re-position their products as building materials rather than PV panels if this fits in with their product/marketing strategies. 

Photovoltaics Shines Brightest for Silver

In serving the applications for silver inks and pastes, manufacturers and distributors face a quandary:  most of the high-growth markets for silver are relatively small, while the larger markets are already mature and generally offer only modest growth prospects.  But the photovoltaics market for silver inks and pastes offers the best of both worlds.  This segment is already approaching a billion dollars in annual revenues, but it will grow faster—in absolute terms—than any of the other silver ink categories, and it will challenge traditional thick-film applications for dominance of the overall silver electronics market in the coming years.  

Thin-Film PV: More than Just a Cost Advantage

As the photovoltaic (PV) industry has grown over the past decade, the thin-film photovoltaics (TFPV) segment of that industry--and with it, the volumes of the materials used by it--has experienced even more rapid growth. And while the recession of 2008-2009 has certainly set things back a bit, this segment is poised to resume significant growth and even to surpass conventional crystalline silicon (c-Si) PV in volume over the next several years.