Solar business from Korea

On March 29, 2010, Sharp Corporation started operations at its new thin-film solar cell plant in GREEN FRONT SAKAI, Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. This plant will produce thin-film solar cells using large-size glass substrates measuring 1,000 x 1,400  mm. Thin-film solar cells have a structure in which thin layers of silicon are accumulated onto a glass substrate, enabling a dramatic reduction in the amount of silicon used, to approximately one hundredth the amount used in crystalline solar cells. The production processes are simpler, thereby lowering production costs. For this reason, the demand for thin-film solar cells, especially for use in large scale photovoltaic power generation, has been steady from all over the world. The thin-film solar cell plant in Sakai will serve as a model plant for future Sharp thin-film solar cell plants around the world. Sharp will continue to accumulate and enhance its proprietary production technology and its know-how, to meet the world’...

A new market report says that the PV industry’s first “Solar Cycle” has taken place in 2009, with end-market demand shrinking 14% compared to the previous year. DisplaySearch's "Q4’09 Quarterly PV Cell Capacity Database & Trends Report" states that the contraction was caused by changes in Spain’s incentive policy and was severely aggravated by the worldwide economic crisis and tight credit markets. The report goes on to note how excess manufacturing capacity has helped push down average PV system prices by more than 25%, but that these lower prices, diversification of the demand base, and positive incentive movement in multiple regions are expected to drive substantially higher demand in 2010. “Despite the long-term bright outlook for solar, 2009 demonstrated the industry’s cyclicality and that it is still highly dependent on incentives,” said Charles Annis, DisplaySearch's VP of manufacturing research. “During 2009 there has been nearly 60% oversupply in cell cap...