Ed’s Threads 080414
Musings by Ed Korczynski on April 14, 2008

Energy Costs mean externalities matter
What do the words “Energy” and “Costs” have to do with materials considerations in 2008? The most recent issue of the Materials Research Society (MRS) Bulletin has just been released and it’s a special issue devoted to exploring all aspects—including costs—of materials science and engineering for energy. Many fine companies like Applied Materials sponsored the issue being made free to the public at the MRS website, and at minimum all adults should read “The Economics of Energy Options” by Lester B. Lave of Carnegie-Mellon University.

“Energy” is an amazing word. Normally defined as the “ability to do work,” we might define “work” as the “ability of use energy”…so the more you study it the more you find circular logic. To further confuse things, we talk about “potential” energy and “kinetic” energy and “random” energy and “surface” energy and “renewable” energy too. Because the term has vague and overlapping definitions, people tend to use the term as they see fit without considering how other people might be using the term.

“Costs” seems like a simple word until you consider “my” cost versus “our” cost…which is the simple way of framing the discussion of economic “externality” wherein I profit by making you pay for some of my cost. ROHS is an example of a topic that is clearly foolish or clearly wise depending upon where you draw the line for the limits of your system: if you only consider your system to be electronics design, manufacturing, distribution, and sales then eliminating lead from PCBs just adds cost and risk. If, however, you consider your system to be society as a whole and include electronics recycling, landfill maintenance, and human health care expenses then eliminating hazardous substances from electronics should reduce overall costs.

“Many of the energy decisions that U.S. residents currently make are conditioned by the subsidies that energy has enjoyed. Until the 1970s, there were few rules requiring companies to abate the air pollution emissions from burning fossil fuels. Fuel was sufficiently abundant that prices were extremely low. Coal and oil were extracted with little thought or care for environmental quality,” says Lave. “As a result, huge social costs were incurred through environmental degradation and the resulting ill health.” The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in a study titled “The Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act, 1970 to 1990,” estimated that abating air pollution had benefits of $22 trillion compared to abatement costs of $523 billion; thus, benefits were more than 40 times greater than costs.

“The costs of U.S. foreign and defense policies to secure large amounts of inexpensive petroleum have not been charged to the imported energy. Consumers made decisions on what car to buy, what size residence to buy, and what temperature to set the thermostat on the basis of artificially lowered prices. Subsidizing a product encourages its use. Thus, the energy policy of the United States has encouraged energy use beyond what it would have been if the price had reflected full social cost,” concluded Lave.

I was born in Detroit (“Motor City”) and still enjoy motor sports, and I’m more than willing to pay $5/gal for gasoline to fuel my fun machines. From first principles of power-to-weight, electric motors should out-torque and out-fun internal combustion engines, but historic batteries had limited life and range and so for 100 years we have been waiting for convenient electric cars to arrive…

Philips in The Netherlands is leading research into new storage technologies for electricity, using 3D trenches in silicon to massively increase the surface area of solid-state rechargeable batteries. This technology derived from silicon IC STI etching could be used in small 3D integrated electronics systems, or potentially even in automobiles.

Lave’s article mentions the need for improved battery technology as part of our desired energy future. “A battery that could power a vehicle for 30–40 miles (48–64 km) and be recharged from an electricity outlet would save about two-thirds of gasoline use. Because only about 2% of electricity is generated from petroleum, if all automobiles and light trucks were plug-in hybrids, more than one-half of oil imports could be eliminated."

The whole debate over the “true” costs of energy centers on where we draw the line on our system, and this is clearly seen in the debate over “solar subsidies.” What is the grid cost of electricity where you live? How much is subsidized directly or indirectly by your government? Do you have to pay a huge upfront cost for your home or are major infrastructure investments absorbed by someone else and you just pay per month? All of these questions relate to the issue of government subsidies to encourage private investment in photovoltaic solar panels.

Meanwhile, Southern California Edison (SCE) announced that recent advances in solar technology combined with a new five-year mega-scale investments allows for costs to drop by one-half. “This project will turn two square miles of unused commercial rooftops into advanced solar generating stations,” said John E. Bryson, Edison International chairman and CEO. “We hope to have the first solar rooftops in service by August. The sunlight power will be available to meet our largest challenge – peak load demands on the hottest days.”

You can put it in my backyard.

—E.K.

Labels: battery, costs, energy, externality, materials research, PV, solar

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080414: Energy Costs mean externalities matter

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Labels: electronic, LED, materials research, packaging, photovoltaic, PV, solar

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080121: SMC highlights PV, LED, and packaging materials

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Ed’s Threads 071130
Musings by Ed Korczynski on November 23, 2007

PV perspective: Interview with AMAT's solar technology expert

Dr. Charles F. Gay, currently VP and GM of Applied Materials’ solar business group, is a renowned expert in PV technology and business, having been president of Arco Solar, Siemens Solar, and ASE Americas, as well as director of the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, CO. He found time in his busy schedule to talk with me about the incredible growth in solar business, and to explain recent changes in the photovoltaic (PV) technology landscape.

“The speed of innovation has ratcheted up quite rapidly, and there are two themes that have affected the industry over the last several years,” explained Gay. One is the scale of the industry, growing at over 40% over the last decade. This has created a dynamic where a company like Q-Cells can just show up in the market and rapidly rise to be No.2. Suntech at No.3 was virtually nonexistent three years ago.

Secondly, as the business has grown, so has the scale of manufacturing. Until recently, crystalline PV lines mainly ran old 150mm wafer equipment obsoleted from IC lines by newer 200mm tools. Less than a decade ago, a world class PV line was capable of producing fewer than 5MW/yr of cells, while today Sharp alone has over 700 MW/year of total fab capacity. Typical PV lines today are 50-100 MW, and a company wanting additional capacity builds multiple lines on site, or starts locating lines around the world depending upon customer demand.

A 100 MW/year line needs to process such a large area of material that equipment from industries other than IC manufacturing, like FPD or architectural glass, have come into mainstream use. “The process control was there, the history of making machines was there, and the expertise enabled thin-films to come onstream just when the lack of silicon had been threatening a delay in continued growth,” Gay said. Control of uniformity over large areas allows for potential cost-reduction in thin-film PV lines.

Thin-film PV panels have been able to capture an increasingly larger piece of the market. While still only ~10% of the total, it is expected to grow at a faster pace due to sheer economies of scale using large glass panels. Secondarily, thin-film lines may take extra market share while crystalline silicon line production is limited by the near-term global poly-silicon shortage.

Some crystalline solar manufacturers have responded with innovative materials engineering and supply-chain management. Using gettering, diffusion, and blanket etching of a top sacrificial layer, a PV line can essentially pull most of the impurities into a top skin that is removed. This adds fab cost, but allows for the use of less expensive "six-nines" [99.9999%] pure starting silicon that is not in short supply. “People thought maybe we can make silicon from dirty quartz using direct reduction, and maybe the silicon only needs to be six-nines pure, instead of nine-nines,” Gay said. He added that cell efficiency for single crystal is ~22% for the very best quality starting material and fab process, ~18% is a general capability for single crystal silicon, and ~16% for high-purity multicrystalline silicon.

Another example of clever materials engineering in PV is tuning the sheet resistance of the silicon using phosphorous (P) diffusion that is pattern dependent. The spacing of topside aluminum lines is determined by the sheet-resistance of the silicon after P diffusion, but P dopants interfere with the short-wavelength absorption of light. An optimization can be found by tuning the P to be higher under the lines (for reduced contact resistance) and lower between the lines (increasing conversion efficiency).

“Innovation has been happening at a faster pace due to the increased scale,” said Gay. “The size of the market is enabling additional R&D in academia, industry, and government, and also allowing for leaps in manufacturing efficiencies.”

An example of manufacturing efficiency increasing with scale is the production of “water-white” glass panels for thin-film PV. Water-white glass has low concentration of Fe₂O₃ which increases optical transmittance, and results in ~2% more light transmission, explained Gay. However, the global demand for this specialized glass was relatively small, so it was only made in relatively expensive batch furnaces. A few years ago, based on solid demand forecasts for thin-film PV panels, architectural glass companies such as Pilkington, PPG, Cardinal Glass, Asahi, etc. started retrofitting continuous float-lines for water-white production. Glass companies can sell “water-white” glass for a premium over standard green soda-lime, while still offering a cost reduction that could be cents per square foot compared to batch processing.

“All the way across the value chain, from basic science to the infrastructure for installation, there is tremendous activity in solar,” observed Gay. “It’s multiplied to the stage in Germany today there are almost as many jobs in solar as there are in automotive. Solar and wind represent for the first time in history the opportunity for job creation.”

With the global terawatt challenge remaining ahead of us, there’s lots of work to be done.—E.K.

Labels: business, energy, manufacturing, photovoltaic, solar

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071130: PV perspective: Interview with AMAT's solar technology expert

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Ed’s Threads 070420
Musings by Ed Korczynski on April 20, 2007

Solar cheerleading for fun and profit
Mike Splinter, president and CEO of Applied Materials (AMAT), is a great solar cheerleader, and he rightly urges us to consider the energy future for our children and grandchildren. In a recent presentation organized by the Commonwealth Club in Silicon Valley, he stumped for US government tax incentives for solar energy investments, and proposed that 25% of new government demand for electricity should be met by renewable sources such as photovoltaic (PV) panels.

Splinter is not merely a visionary altruist in these matters, since thin-film PV represents the next major growth opportunity for his company. As the IC manufacturing industry has matured, AMAT’s previous 20% annual growth has slowed to ~10% and new high-growth markets are needed to increase growth forecasts back to historic “outperform” levels.

AMAT has made significant investments over the last decade to acquire companies with technologies that support general manufacturing: metrology, gas-effluent abatement, and computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) software and manufacturing execution systems (MES) for managing lots of substrates and shuttling lithographic reticles around. In addition, AMAT built the “Mayden Technology Center” as a showcase for selling special integrated process recipes in addition to the free general recipes included with all new hardware.

Semiconductor manufacturing fabs want to control their own technologies and supply chains, so they’ve paid for processes from other fabs but almost never from an equipment supplier. Solar cell manufacturing lines require relatively less technology but more classic industrial engineering, and buying an integrated and committed process along with a turn-key physical production line makes a lot of sense. In addition to general thin-films manufacturing technology, AMAT has deep experience with handling the largest FPD substrates in the world through its subsidiary Applied-Komatsu Technology (AKT).

“The latest generation of our tools can pattern six 50” TVs on a glass substrate,” almost the size of a garage door, Splinter told the Commonwealth Club audience. “With innovation we can provide an inflection point for solar energy, to make solar competitive with all other sources of electricity generation,” he championed, and suggested that his company’s technologies may lead to 2x-4x cost-reductions in thin-film PV manufacturing.

Solar sources currently provide <0.1% of the 5 TeraWatts of energy used globally each year. A trillion US$ will be spent on new electricity generation capacity worldwide in 2007, and an average 1GW-capacity coal plant emits as much CO2 as 1 million cars. Today in the US, all renewable energy is only 2% of the total. “The planet’s clock is ticking, and I hope that that ticking is the heartbeat of the planet and not something much worse,” said Splinter.

AMAT is working to set up solar panel fabs for customers in China, India, and Spain, which together represent 20% of the world’s new PV manufacturing capacity. In 2006, the solar manufacturing industry added 2GW capacity to bring the world up to 8GW total; by 2010, a $50B forecast annual investment should build total manufacturing capacity to 25GW. If just 5% of the new demand forecast for electricity worldwide would be met by solar, it would require a total $150B investment. All forecasts for future PV demand are “insatiable” for both the near- and long-term. If you're looking to invest a billion dollars somewhere, a turn-key thin-film PV manufacturing line from AMAT seems like it would provide a solid return on investment (ROI).

Specific public policy changes to help solar investment include extending the home income-tax credit, establishing a net metering law at the federal level, and mandating that 25% of electricity consumption by governments should be from renewable sources. “America is behind the rest of the world in solar energy adoption, and that’s just not acceptable. What are we waiting for?” asked Splinter, “I think you’ll agree that we have to stop making excuses.”

— E.K.

Labels: electricity, energy, manufacturing, photovoltaic, PV, solar, thin-film

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070420: Solar cheerleading for fun and profit

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