Underpinned by Several New Market Developments, 2016 Promises Improvements for Solar Energy
The coming year in the solar energy market promises to be a bit brighter than the previous few; at least that’s the projection. Three key market developments that took place in 2015 are giving solar a boost in critical, large regions and encouraging increased use of alternative energy. First, world leaders came together in Paris in late 2015 and signed the Paris Climate Agreement, with all participating countries agreeing to reduce emissions. Renewable energy – and solar specifically – will be key to achieving this goal.
In addition to the Paris agreement, the world’s largest nations have made bold commitments to solar energy. China has agreed to add 18GW of solar energy per year for the next five years. And, in the US, the solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC) has been extended until 2021. Over the next five years, it’s highly likely that the US will add as much as 10GW per year. In India, officials have stated that the country wants to add as much as 100GW of solar energy by 2020. While these are ambitious goals that may be tough to achieve, they are at least a show of confidence for solar’s role in a sustainable future.
Finally, solar demand hit 57.8GW globally with the expectation that it will reach 65GW in 2016. With estimates that 60GW of capacity exists at solar manufacturers, it appears that the past three years of over-capacity have now balanced and manufacturers will begin to invest. Some analysts have suggested that Tier 1 manufacturers will add an additional 6 to 7GW of capacity in 2016.
While growth is on the horizon, it will be modest in the short term. Over the next 5 years, solar is expected to experience a 12% CAGR, though this expansion will still only put solar at less than 2% of total global energy sources. Longer-term, however, solar’s piece of the global energy pie could be as much as 20%, placing new demands on manufacturers to keep an eye on cost and efficiency to drive this growth. To achieve their objectives, solar manufacturers are increasingly looking to suppliers for improvement in equipment price/performance ratios, better processes for streamlined labor use, reduced cost of ownership and increased yields. What’s more, all of this needs to be achieved while also making gains in cell efficiency and material consumption reductions, particularly silver.
ASM Alternative Energy is already delivering on these goals and partnering with customers to develop new techniques, significantly improve yields and drive competitiveness. Our Eclipse metallization platform offers sustained throughputs of greater than 75,000 wafers per day, breakage rates below 0.15% and attractive pricing to allow customers to maximize manufacturing activity. Unmatched warranty terms help lower cost of ownership and the introduction of new technologies like the Digital PrintHead allows fine lines to be printed at high speeds with fewer line breaks, raising end of line yield and dramatically improving cell efficiency.
