THE FIGHT FOR THIN FILM

Sharp, Enel and ST Micro Swooping into Thin Film Solar Panels; Will thin film’s promise emerge from startups like Solyndra or industrial giants like Sharp, STMicro, and Enel?
Eric Wesoff, August 2, 2010 (Greentech Media)

"With thin film pioneers like Applied Materials and Signet expired on the battlefield -- or like Solyndra, licking their wounds -- Japanese solar giant Sharp, Enel, the largest power company in Italy and STMicroelectronics, the leading European semiconductor supplier have declared their entry into thin film.

"The three firms have formed a joint venture called 3Sun and look to start production in the second half of 2011 and to also act as an independent power producer to develop, build and operate PV power generation plants with help from an Italian subsidy for the solar cell plant."

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"3Sun will start the production of thin-film solar cells in the second half of 2011 by utilizing the existing facility of ST in Catania, Sicily Region, Italy. The thin-film solar cell plant will start operation with an initial annual production capacity of 160 megawatts, which is scheduled to be expanded to an annual production capacity of 480 megawatts…"

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"Sharp…[will develop] the world's first business model extending from thin-film solar cell production to [power production]…[I]t's safe to assume that this is amorphous silicon…Sharp appears to be doubling down on this thin-film silicon approach.

"Sharp is now the number-three solar cell supplier (behind First Solar and Suntech), with about 600 megawatts of cells shipping in 2010…Sharp has a one-gigawatt-capacity factory in Osaka building tandem junction a-Si panels with decent efficiencies for this technology, in the neighborhood of nine percent…[It] is also completing an 18-megawatt a-Si installation in Canada through Sun Edison, as well as large deployments in Mendota, CA and Dayton, Ohio…[The] leading crystalline silicon supplier…[expects] amorphous silicon (a-Si) will be as much as 50 percent of [its] solar business…"