QYResearch: Thin Film Solar is a New Star Besides Polysilicon

QYResearch: Thin Film Solar is a New Star Besides Polysilicon
Editor: QYResearch Solar Energy Research Center, Date: Feb 22,2008
2004 German Government Subsidy on Solar industry brought great increased of global solar energy industry, Strong demand of solar energy cuted solar grade polysilicon shortage and very high profit margin of global polysilicon manufacturers. While year 2007, great success of US First Solar brought a new era of Thin Film solar cell. 1.3$/wp low cost, 11% middle high efficiency, EU and US large and long term contracts, large-scale manufacturing without raw materials shortage….all these factors help First Solar achieved high profit margin, greatly increasing revenue and high-reliable income expectation. This also meant year 2007 and the coming years will be the goldtime for thin film solar. During the passing 2007, thin film is the hottest field in solar industry. A lot of new projects hold foundation or put into production, equipments vendors owned a lot of new equipment orders even though they have more than 1 year contracts with full production capacity. Beside US First Solar, Japan Sharp also started their large capacity thin film plan, German Q-CELL Schott Solar etc also invested a lot on thin film solar cell, Taiwan published more than 10 thin film project almost in one day, China Suntech increased their thin film investment before their commercial production, Shenzhen Topray Solar went public successfully, Hebei Xinao Group invested about 14billion RMB on thin film business etc news all showed thin film was welcomed by more and more capital and attention, thin film low cost and more energy help reducing solar power cost compare with crystal silicon solar energy though C-Si PV will be the key product in the near future. But for long time seeing, thin film likely can be the hero on reducing solar power cost or even less than traditional fire power.