Solar PV Module Costs to Fall to 36 Cents per Watt by 2017
Green Tech Media, by Nicholas Rinaldi, June 18, 2013
Production costs for industry-leading Chinese crystalline-silicon (c-Si)
PV module manufacturers -- such as Jinko Solar, Renesola, Trina Solar
and Yingli Green Energy -- will fall from 50 cents per watt in the
fourth quarter of 2012 to 36 cents per watt by the end of 2017,
according to a new 112-page report from GTM Research. The report, "PV
Technology and Cost Outlook, 2013-2017," predicts that the majority of
these cost declines will derive from technology innovations such as
diamond wire sawing for PV wafers, advanced metallization solutions, and
increased automation in place of manual labor. While precipitous cost
declines of roughly 70 cents per watt from 2010 to 2012 were made
possible by cutthroat pricing and margin erosion in the polysilicon and
PV materials markets, the report sees cost reduction drivers migrating
in-house for wafer, cell, and module suppliers, as adoption of advanced
technology platforms and manufacturing automation will account for 80
percent of the forecasted declines.
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