It is not surprising that amorphous silicon no longer commands respect in the photo-voltaic market place, at least for grid connected power applications. See http://bit.ly/Aeoqry
When Applied Materials and Oerlikon began offering turnkey production lines, doing a little life cycle cost and revenue analysis showed that 95% of the total lifetime net present value of the line went to the supplier of the line as a capital investment in the purchase price. And that assumed that poly-silicon and x-Si prices stayed high or declined slowly. If you did a forecast scenario where x-Si pricess dropped to their current levels, that figure rose well above 100%!
The primary achievement of this technology was the marketing and selling process used to put this kind of deal over on the solar investors caught up in the tulip craze!
A-Si still holds the record for highest ratio of investor losses suffered versus monies paid to the inventors/developers of the technology. Just look at the example of ECD and "Ovonics" for a business school case. Stan O is still chuckling.
But it looks like the massive investments in CIGS PV module production lines for a product that still costs more than x-Si instead of less will soon compete for that crown, with Solyndra the most publicized candidate firm to make it into the Harvard classroom studies, but there are definitively some other worthy contenders in the race.
Showing posts with label solyndra. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solyndra. Show all posts
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Solyndra Chu Chu
Despite Stephen Chu's testimony, Solyndra's problem was NOT that the market price of PV modules dropped unexpectedly. Many investors were expecting poly-silicon prices to drop when new production capacity came online, and most non silicon PV plays using alternative materials like CIGS or Cd-Te had such price erosion built into their forecast scenarios. The DOE certainly knew this was a possibility long before the Solyndra decisions were made.
Solyndra, and all the thin film producers except perhaps First Solar (which just passed 5 GW of production), have a problem with how much it costs to get down their learning curve (see http://bit.ly/DWcBW ). In the long term they have a realistic chance to have a cost advantage over silicon, and CIGS should have a further cost advantage over Cd-Te. But all of the thin film business plans so far have been wildly optimistic about how fast they can get their prices down, and thus greatly underestimated the losses they will pile up during early low volume production at prices that are usually higher than an efficient silicon based producer. The market price erosion certainly exacerbated this, but Solyndra and most others were not economically viable even if module prices stayed high.
Unless DOE was privy to some incredible materials, labor, and overhead cost and yield data from Solyndra that no one else has heard about, Solyndra's cost of goods sold (COGS) was way too high to be viable even if PV module prices had not dropped. This is why their IPO was stopped, not "poor market conditions". Also, Solyndra's propensity for huge non production staffing and administrative costs (like lobbyists) meant they would have lost big even if their production costs had been better.
The Solyndra investors used political influence and played the DOE to get the taxpayers to take all the downside risk, while allowing themselves to retain most of the upside potential for gain. This is exactly what Democrats have been accusing the evil Wall Street firms of! Stephen Chu was just the designated cut out and bag holder, a role apparently that having a Nobel prize does not protect you from!
The real irony, which would be amusing if it weren't so financially painful, is that all of the these firms were competing to be "the next First Solar" (http://bit.ly/kJsekR) and most of them did it, i.e., the initial investors got completely burned out and lost everything, and profits, if any, will accrue to the second or third capitalization.
The lesson we should all learn is that only markets can pick winners, and only markets can accurately monetize technology commercialization. If we let governments do anything other than give R&D tax breaks, we all lose!
Solyndra, and all the thin film producers except perhaps First Solar (which just passed 5 GW of production), have a problem with how much it costs to get down their learning curve (see http://bit.ly/DWcBW ). In the long term they have a realistic chance to have a cost advantage over silicon, and CIGS should have a further cost advantage over Cd-Te. But all of the thin film business plans so far have been wildly optimistic about how fast they can get their prices down, and thus greatly underestimated the losses they will pile up during early low volume production at prices that are usually higher than an efficient silicon based producer. The market price erosion certainly exacerbated this, but Solyndra and most others were not economically viable even if module prices stayed high.
Unless DOE was privy to some incredible materials, labor, and overhead cost and yield data from Solyndra that no one else has heard about, Solyndra's cost of goods sold (COGS) was way too high to be viable even if PV module prices had not dropped. This is why their IPO was stopped, not "poor market conditions". Also, Solyndra's propensity for huge non production staffing and administrative costs (like lobbyists) meant they would have lost big even if their production costs had been better.
The Solyndra investors used political influence and played the DOE to get the taxpayers to take all the downside risk, while allowing themselves to retain most of the upside potential for gain. This is exactly what Democrats have been accusing the evil Wall Street firms of! Stephen Chu was just the designated cut out and bag holder, a role apparently that having a Nobel prize does not protect you from!
The real irony, which would be amusing if it weren't so financially painful, is that all of the these firms were competing to be "the next First Solar" (http://bit.ly/kJsekR) and most of them did it, i.e., the initial investors got completely burned out and lost everything, and profits, if any, will accrue to the second or third capitalization.
The lesson we should all learn is that only markets can pick winners, and only markets can accurately monetize technology commercialization. If we let governments do anything other than give R&D tax breaks, we all lose!
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