Solar-Panel Giant Poised to Get Even Bigger
One of the world's fastest-growing solar-panel manufacturers, Tokyo-based Solar Frontier, may soon increase production still more with help from its oil-company-funded parent company, Showa Shell Sekiyu.
In 2007, Solar Frontier built its first factory, which had the capacity to make 20 megawatts of solar panels a year. It's since built a plant every two years, culminating in a 900-megawatt plant in Kunitomi, Japan, that started production last year. Now it's evaluating building a fourth plant in Japan after it was selected by the Japanese government to receive funding to build a factory. It also plans to build a new plant in the Middle East in connection with Saudi Aramco and Royal Dutch Shell. Saudi Aramco owns 15 percent of Showa Shell, and Shell owns 35 percent. Solar Frontier has seen significant demand for its solar panels: for example, earlier this year, the company announced that it would supply solar panels for a large (up to 150-megawatt) solar-power plant in California.
Solar Frontier makes CIGS solar panels, which are based on a thin film of semiconductor made from copper, indium, gallium, and selenium. The semiconductor material is far better at absorbing sunlight than silicon, so less of it is required, and it can be processed using fewer steps than silicon. Both attributes could reduce the cost of a solar panel. But it's proved difficult to manufacture CIGS panels at large scales and at costs low enough to compete with the incumbent technology. Dozens of companies have tried, but so far, they make only relatively small amounts of solar panels. One such company, Solyndra, famously failed to reduce the costs of the process and ran out of money.
Solar Frontier, with nearly a gigawatt of solar-panel production capacity, is the notable exception. The company's direct competitors include other CIGS companies, but also silicon solar-panel manufacturers and First Solar, which makes thin-film solar panels based on cadmium telluride. Taken together, these companies make most of the world's solar panels. Solar Frontier declined to give specific cost figures, but it says its costs are competitive, even with low-cost Chinese solar-panel makers using conventional silicon technology. Because its panels work well in low-light conditions, they can generate more electricity than silicon solar panels of the same peak power output. The company says this allows its customers to earn more revenue from solar-panel installations than they could using other solar panels.
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