ENF announces its new 3rd Edition Future PV Technologies Review with its amazing breadth and original insights

The solar PV industry is now a fast moving and hugely complex industry. Over the space of a decade it has moved from a compact tiny industry supporting a few slow moving technology tracks to one with well over 30 parallel technology tracks, some 300 research laboratories and universities pushing the very boundaries of PV science and over 10,000 companies engaged in all aspects of the solar PV value chain.

Such is the current complexity and pace of change of the solar PV industry that ENF has found it essential to move to this 3rd edition a mere 18 months after publishing the 2nd edition. The report has grown from five main sections to twelve and the number of written characters has doubled to 800,000, packed with well analysed information and data.

The emphasis of the report is on the commercialisation of solar PV technologies. It is the most comprehensive technology review currently on the market. It’s scope travels from the mining of polysilicon, indium and tellurium (with a particular focus on the critical supply issues), down the value chain to the key machinery, factory processes, descriptions of the parallel technology tracks and all the way to the final solar PV products, applications and systems. It provides not just a snap shot of the entire global industry but also drills down several levels below the general business reports and does not shy away from difficult truths.

The report is based upon three years of cumulative effort by the ENF research team, brought right up to date and independently vetted over the three editions by eminent PV directors from different parts of the solar PV value-chain.

"This report is a very impressive collection of information around photovoltaics."

- Frank-Holm Roegner, Head of E-Processing Department, Fraunhofer Institute

"I would like to congratulate you and your team to the excellent and very comprehensive report. It is really a very valuable document with a lot of insightful information."

- Dr. Arnulf Jäger-Waldau, European Commission Joint Research Centre

Over 400 companies are mentioned directly in the main body of the Technology Review building up a rich picture of who is investing in what. Of course there are the well known companies in the industry such as Sharp, Sanyo, BP Solar, Evergreen Solar, First Solar, Würth Solar, Applied Materials, REC, Hemlock Semiconductors, AJA International, as well as companies new to the industry bringing with them challenging innovations.

However the industry is now so large that we have had to limit the number of companies mentioned in the report to no more than a sample of the more significant companies relating to particular technology developments.

 
Instead, where there are a huge number of suppliers for a particular solar PV technology, specialist machine or material we have linked the electronic version of the Technology Review directly to the relevant section of the ENF industry directory of over 10,000 companies. In this way the world’s most comprehensive solar PV technology review is electronically linked to the world’s most comprehensive solar PV industry database. This is a first for the solar PV industry.

The report also puts together for the first time over 300 university departments and public and private research laboratories (excluding those of suppliers) that are currently active in solar PV research and for most, identifies their area(s) of research, web links and contact points.

The ENF Future PV Technology Review has been a layered process of research and analysis over 3 years. It began in early 2007 with the:

1st Edition of the ENF Future PV Technology Review (Sept 2007)

This first edition brought an “out of industry” perspective led by a leading technology strategist to the emerging global solar PV industry. This offered the industry a fresh way of viewing a number of emerging issues. The solar PV industry was beset by its first crisis – the polysilicon shortage. A deep-dive ENF research project was undertaken on the polysilicon industry that looked at a number of emerging polysilicon refining technologies. It also laid the foundation of the analysis of the number of alternative parallel tracks that the solar PV technologies were branching out into and the review followed the industry convention to first, second and third generation technologies.

This foundation layer comprised the following sections:

Part I - Setting the Scene (the commercialisation issues)      
Part II - Emerging Scene of Silicon Refining Technologies
Part III - 2007 - Factual Survey of PV Technologies

To make it exceptionally easy to find information every solar PV technology result followed an identical format of:

Introduction – Definition of the technology and simplified pros and cons
Market Players – Simple listing of who appears active in the technology
Cell & Panel Efficiency – The commonly accepted comparator
Description – Helping create a mental image of what it is
Raw Materials – Added where this is significant eg Gallium
Manufacturing Processes Used – Identification of the industry processes necessary
Up Stream Suppliers – Who supplies the critical process machines etc?
Industrial Capacity Behind the technology – Estimate of the factory capacity coming on stream
Future R&D directions – Listing the challenges for the specific technology

A key part of the research has been to find quantification for claims and explanations of things that are not commonplace.

This foundation has been preserved and up-dated with each subsequent edition of the ENF Future Technology Review

2nd Edition of the ENF Future PV Technology Review (Sept 2008)

The second edition extended the vision of the ENF technology review all the way down the entire value chain from the mining of key raw materials like indium and tellurium to the emerging solar products revolution. For the first time the entire solar PV industry was painted on the same canvas allowing the relationship between the different parts of the industry to be clearly seen.

The review of critical materials coincided with huge price hikes of some materials critical to second generation (thin film) solar PV technologies. In a very well researched deep dive a very insightful report was brought into the review. The review also made a start on the factory processes and key machines with a particular emphasis on deposition technologies. This led to the following scope and organisation of the review:

Part I – Setting the Scene
Part II – Review of Critical Materials
Part III – Factory Processes for PV Technologies
Part IV – Factual Survey of PV Technologies
Part V – Solar PV Cell Application Products

3rd Edition of the ENF Future PV Technology Review (April 2010)

The third edition has followed the same ambitious target of bringing right up to date the existing two layers of information and analysis… at the same time extending the scope of the review into new areas, including solar PV systems, TPV and quality/reliability of solar PV to create the following much expanded framework:

Part I – Economic Effects Shaping Technology Directions
Part II – Review of Critical Materials
Part III – Key Machines Used in the Factory Processes
Part IV – Factory Processes for PV Technologies

Part V – Factual Survey of PV Technologies

Part VI – Thermo PV Technology (TPV)
Part VII – Innovative Solar PV Films, Cells, Panels & Designs
Part VIII – Solar PV Generated AC Energy
Part IX – The Solar Powered Products Revolution
Part X – Quality and Reliability of Solar PV Systems
Part XI – Survey of Solar PV Research in University & Public/Private Research Laboratories
Part XII – Glossary of Terms Used in the Solar PV Industry

 
Together with some new deep dive research projects, including factory machines and processes we have also brought together a review of over 300 University Departments and public and private research laboratories active in solar PV research (excluding those of suppliers)  from over 40 countries.

The 3rd edition has embedded web links in various sections of the Technology Review to the appropriate parts of the ENF’s on-line industry databases …so that those with electronic versions of the Future Technology Review can move seamlessly from a description and analysis of a particular technology or material to the ENF industry database and from there to the websites of thousands of companies active in the various parts of the industry! In this way the future technology review has been turned into a unique information tool for the industry.

Throughout the entire 3 year rolling process we have maintained a very tight discipline of providing enough detail to allow a wide variety of managers in the industry at all levels and those outside who engage with the industry (investors, regulators etc) to understand what is going on and enough insight to be able to see the big picture and engage with experts.  It fills that vital knowledge space between the light media articles and the technical text books.