Multicrystalline silicon solar cells to become mainstream, say industry players
Nuying Huang, Taipei; Esther Lam, DigiTimes.com
Wednesday 15 November 2006
Source: DigiTimes
http://www.digitimes.com/bits_chips/a20061114A6028.html
Although solar cells based on monocrystalline silicon deliver better performance than multicrystalline silicon, industry players believe that the latter should rise as the mainstream material for solar cells due to its lower cost. It is commonly agreed that monocrystalline silicon has a better power conversion rate than than that of multi-crystalline silicon solar cell by about 1% and this brings relatively higher average selling prices (ASPs). Some industry players even regard the production status of monocrystalline silicon solar cells as an indication of a vendor’s competitiveness.
Monocrystalline silicon requires a higher purity of polysilicon, which translates into higher costs. The cost of equipment used to produce monocrystalline silicon solar cells is also higher than that used for multicrystalline silicon.
Industry players noted that production equipment for mono- and multicrystalline silicon wafers are not interchangeable with each other. The only solution to save additional equipment procurement cost would be to adjust production parameters for the two types of material on the side of solar cell makers, which depend heavily on vendors’ experience.
From the point of profitability, solar cell makers should see greater room for profits in using multicrystalline silicon solar cells because the associated production cost savings when compared to those of monocrystalline silicon can be considerable.
Among leading polysilicon wafer makers in Taiwan, Green Energy Technology leads its rivals in terms of the proportion of multicrystalline production. Rival Sino-American Silicon Products (SAS) plans to split its production capacity of silicon wafers evenly among mono- and multicrystalline silicon in 2007, versus the current ratio of 2:1.
Motech Industries’ current mono- to multicrystalline silicon solar cell production is 3.5:6.5 with future focus to be placed on the later. E-ton Solar Tech aims to split its solar cell production evenly between monocrystalline and multicrystalline types in 2009 versus the current 9:1 ratio. All of Motech’s future fabs with an odd number designation will be assigned to mono-crystalline silicon solar cell production whereas even numbered fabs will engage in multi-crystalline silicon solar cell production.