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15 Sep 2006
The 21st - and largest ever - European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition took place in Dresden, Germany, between 4-8 September, heard more than 900 speeches. The general conclusion from visitors and presenters was that there is enormous and growing demand for this technology.
The 21st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference (EU PVSEC) held last week in Dresden, Germany, hosted a record-breaking number of attendees. Around 2,700 scientists, industry representatives and politicians from 95 countries and around 3,600 visitors to the parallel trade exhibition considered the latest developments in solar energy generation.
The EU PVSEC is a platform for exchange between research and industrial application. The figure of around 6,300 participants and specialist visitors from all over the world shows how far this technology transfer process has expanded.
The conference is supported by various bodies including UNESCO, the European Commission and the [German] Federal Ministry for the Environment. "The EU PVSEC is the world's most important event for the exchange of scientific, technical, strategic and economic information in the area of photovoltaics," said Jef Poortmans, conference chairman, who works as Program Director, Photovoltaics at the Interuniversity Microelectronics Center (IMEC) in Leuven, Belgium.
"Business-to-Business-to-Science", was the formula used by Winfried Hoffmann, general manager of Schott Solar and President of the European Photovoltaic Industry Association in his opening speech to describe the conference and exhibition.
"The entire spectrum of solar energy generation from the basics in the area of silicon to the global aspects of photovoltaics in the context of energy supply was explored in over 900 speeches and presentations," said Hoffmann.
Michael Müller, the parliamentary secretary of state at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety described energy and raw materials as the key issue of the 21st century. He said he regards the EU PVSEC as a "symbol of the change", which is currently taking place.
Germany
Germany currently represents about 60% of the world photovoltaics market and there are already around 3,500 companies operating in this branch of industry, many of whom are world market leaders.
"The drastic increase in oil prices and the growing awareness of business, politics and consumers with regard to the limited availability of fossil fuels has given the photovoltaics sector enormous momentum and has also greatly accelerated the innovation loop," said Heinz Ossenbrink, technical program chairman of the conference and head of the Renewable Energy Department of the Institute for Environment and Sustainability at the EU's Joint Research Centre in Ispra, near Milan.
"The boom in the sector, which brought about worldwide turnover of €5.8 billion last year with a growth rate of 40%, has most recently led to a global shortage of the raw material, silicon," he said.
He added that this year's conference program reflected the latest developments in research and on the market, including: technological progress with higher levels of efficiency; a reduced demand for silicon for the manufacture of solar cells; and the lower overall usage of materials in the manufacturing process. "Scientists around the world are working on solar cells which can be produced entirely without silicon, which is a scarce commodity."
Japan
Setsuo Luchi, the head of department at the Japanese Ministry for Economics, Trade and Industry (METI) described Japan's solar energy strategy. Production of solar-generated electricity has been promoted by the state in Japan since 1974.
Since 1997, the promotion of renewable energy sources has been anchored by legislation. According to Luchi, this has been a dramatic success: thanks to effects of scale, the costs of solar generated electricity dropped in Japan by over 80% between 1993 and 2002. The METI believes that a further cost reduction of 85% by 2030 is realistic. There are plans to quadruple the 2004 production level of 1.13 GW to 4.82 GW by 2010.
United States of America
Michael Eckhart, President of the American Council on Renewable Energy, gave an impressive description of the change in thinking, which is currently taking place in the US. He said that it is not just the cost of petrol, which has recently doubled for US consumers, that has given rise to this paradigm shift. Broad sections of the public are also becoming aware of the dangers of climate change.
The USA was represented at the EU PVSEC with 18 speeches in the fields of research and industrial application. A highlight of the EU PVSEC was the presentation of the Becquerel Prize, first awarded by the European Commission in 1989 to mark the 150th anniversary of the discovery of the photovoltaic effect by the Frenchman Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel.
This year, the prize went to the American, Dr. Richard Swanson, who founded the company SunPower in 1991. After spending twenty years in research, Swanson was distinguished for his groundbreaking work in the development of high-efficiency silicon solar cells. Using SunPower solar cells, NASA's solar-powered research aircraft,
Politicians appear to have acknowledged the risk of increasing reliance on oil imports. In the USA, the promotion of renewable energy sources comes under the authority of the Federal States. One major breakthrough in this regard is the Million Solar Roofs program, initiated by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California, under which solar power plants with a capacity of around 3 GW are to be built over the next few years with an investment of $3.2 billion.
Cost reduction
For a long time, solar energy was thought to be too expensive. However, surge current is meanwhile being sold on national energy exchanges at prices above the legally guaranteed feed-in tariffs. This was the case for the first time on the Leipzig energy exchange on 27 July 2006. On that day, a kilowatt hour of peak load electricity cost 54 eurocents. In Germany, under the terms of the Renewable Energy Sources Act, a kilowatt hour of solar energy costs 40.6 - 51.8 eurocents.
According to Ossenbrink the viability threshold has already been reached in southern Europe. The continuing rise of energy prices will reinforce this development. Ossenbrink said he is convinced that "in five to ten years, regarding surge current solar energy will be cost-effective". He sees this year's solar energy conference in Dresden as a turning point in the industry's development.
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