(View presentations)

The PV industry may have achieved a historic milestone on July 12 as industry leaders gave technology roadmap efforts--loosely based on the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS)--near-unanimous support. At a workshop organized by SEMI PV Group and the US Department of Energy (DOE) on the Sunday before Intersolar North America, workshop participants explored the history of the ITRS and how it could be applied to the PV industry. Over 130 people attended the packed session which included breakout sessions on critical roadmap areas such as factory integration, materials and substrates, and sustainability.

A critical portion of the workshop was devoted to current technology roadmap efforts in Japan and Europe and how they might relate to US and international efforts. Dr. Winfried Hoffman, president of the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA), gave an overview of the Photovoltaic Technology Platform established by the European Commission to bring together industry stakeholders, explore synergies and communicate needs to governments. This effort is “focused on accelerating market volumes, not accelerated R&D,” and consequently is addressing the removal of technical administrative and institutional barriers to rapid PV deployment. “The role of R&D development is needed, but not to drive the price experience curve.”

Japan’s PV Technology Roadmap was also discussed through a presentation by Dr. Fukuo Aratani, RTS Corporation, who provided an overview of the “Accelerated and Extended Japan PV Roadmap 2030+” supported by New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), a semi-governmental organization, and Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). This effort has provided substantial direction to Japan’s R&D efforts in PV for over 30 years. This roadmap plan was recently updated and extended to 2050 and includes short term deployment projects, mid-term projects focused on high performance technologies, and system technologies, including on-grid and off-grid energy management systems.

Marie Mapes of DOE gave an overview of the US history in guiding PV development over the past decade. Their Technology Roadmap document of 2007 was an attempt to provide milestones and metrics for seven different types of solar technologies and was policy oriented, rather than the more granular, detailed and industry-wide approach of the ITRS. The DOE is currently working on a Solar Vision Study, scheduled for completion in February of 2010 and sees an ITRS-like effort to be a useful compliment to this effort.

The DOE and the room full of suppliers, cell and module manufacturers, and other technologists agrees that an effective technology roadmap effort must be a global effort, with global participation from all key regions and sectors of the industry. The mutual objective of replacing fossil fuel with renewable energy sources that is shared by all governments compels international cooperation on this critical issue.

Chris Case, chairman of the ITRS technical committee, Terry Francis, Chief Technologist for Matheson Tri-Gas, and Chris Constantine, director of new technologies at Oerlikon Solar all gave presentations on the challenges and methodologies of the ITRS process, in relation to its applicability to PV. All were positive about the ITRS model for the PV industry.

Case provided an overview of the scope and complexity of the ITRS, how market drivers produce product needs, forcing technology developments, and ultimately steering basic research. The ITRS document itself is updated annually and provides a technology forecast over rolling a 15-year timeline. It has thousands of contributors and pages and used by hundreds by companies in all regions of the world. While recognizing any roadmap effort’s limitations (i.e. they become out-of-date as soon as they are published), he believed that the process was an effective way to organize technical requirements and “innovation is spurred by identifying requirements.” The open and public process fosters a healthy “beat the roadmap” behavior by the industry. He sees the PV industry as very much a “parallel universe” to semiconductors who can benefit from the experience of the ITRS.

Francis identified both the similarities and differences between the critical roadmap issues in chips and PV. Both involve substrates, interconnect, absorber/efficiency, metrology, packaging, test, and EHS requirements. Both have common business drivers such as cost reduction, throughput, quality and reliability, and sustainability. Like DRAMs, Logic and ASICs, PV is extremely materials sensitive and comprised of multiple technologies who do not share many requirements. But PV is clearly different and does not have the powerful organizing paradigm of the next process node that helps ground the semiconductor roadmap.

Chris Constantine was also very supportive of a technology roadmap for the PV industry based on the ITRS experience and process. He firmly believed that roadmaps effectively identify technology gaps and that they served as “learning tools for the industry.” In lithography, he demonstrated how the process of identifying gaps was essential to overcoming barriers. He showed how roadmaps can predict new technologies and was confident the ITRS template was applicable to solar.

Several of the speakers emphasized the relationship between standards and technology roadmaps. Constantine said that “roadmaps without standards don’t work.” Roadmaps are the “group view of technology path over time,” he said. “Standards are the tools the industry agrees to identify a set of common specifications” that define industry requirements. Others noted how standards define where you collaborate, and where you compete.

Four break out sessions were organized to more thoroughly review the roadmap needs, issues and challenges in specific areas in more detail, including, factory integration, materials and substrates, cells and module assembly, and EHS. Each of the groups was asked to identify the top technology requirements in their area and whether it would benefit from pre-competitive industry collaboration, and a technology roadmap.

The wide mix of PV technologies was among the top conceptual challenges facing the break-out sessions. How could an industry roadmap address thin film, crystalline and concentrator technologies? Thin film is dominated by turnkey and proprietary technologies; how can a roadmap be effective in these highly integrated systems? Substrates range from wafers to panels to mile long stainless steel rolls. Even in crystalline silicon, you have wafers, squares and ribbons. Without a common denominator like process node, or without government funding driven by imperatives like national security, can a global roadmap really serve the critical business needs of the industry?

While many questions remain unanswered, at the conclusion of the break-out sessions, near-unanimous agreement was reached on the applicability and need for an international PV technology roadmap. The complexity and breadth of the challenges confronted in the breakout sessions seemingly did not deter anyone from agreeing that major opportunities exist for a more-accelerated and more collaborative industry technology development process. The meeting concluded with an agreement to pursue the discussions further through webinars, through a possible steering committee or council, and through a face-to-face meeting at the upcoming PVSEC event in Hamburg, Germany.

To keep up-to-date on developments on the PV technology roadmap process, please check the PV Group website at www.pvgroup.org or subscribe to the PV Group newsletter by emailing the PV Group.