Photovoltaic science is maturing. Panel prices are falling, making the energy they produce steadily more competitive with fossil fuel. And now manufacturing volumes are on the rise.
The solar industry is entering a new more mature stage.
Solar factories once produced 50 to 100 MW of panels. Now they are churning out 500 MW or a gigawatt.
“Companies are moving from manufacturing tens of thousands of solar panels to hundreds of thousands of solar panels,” says Mark Schenecker, high tech industry principal at software maker SAP. “The scale of manufacturing is changing dramatically.”
This expanded manufacturing is likely to have a lasting impact on the industry. First it will bring even lower prices. As production volumes grow, factory costs are spread over an increasing number of products.
The new maturity also is likely to ignite the price sensitive consumer market. As solar panels become commodities, more installers enter the business and installation options grow.
A third impact will be focused on the manufacturers themselves. “What we’re seeing in the solar industry is companies fully committed to 100 percent utilization of their factories,” says Schenecker.
This crush is pushing facilities to expand from 50 to 100 MW of panels in a year to 500 MW or even a gigawatt. Accompanying the change is a demand for greater internal controls to manage inventory, monitor supply chains and constrain costs. To meet these needs, a tier of service and software companies is emerging.
One manufacturer eager to improve internal controls is Evergreen Solar of Massachusetts. The company is using software from SAP to better manage inventory and monitor operating costs, factory tool by factory tool, says Mark Fidler, vice president of finance.
The industry is growing up.
I think demand for greater internals controls is also increasing… http://www.cypress.com/
A new solar panel production process being developed by Natcore Solar, will revolutionize the industry.
Eddy K.
I was looking for Australian solar related info this was good