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PV Technology Landscape in Industrial Production

Research · January 2019

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.33969.61289

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 M. Sc. Renewable Energy Engineering and Management – Seminar “Photovoltaics 2”, Winter Term 2018/ 2019

PV TECHNOLOGY LANDSCAPE IN INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION

FOR THE COURSE PHOTOVOLTAICS 2 2019

Amogh Ananth Neermarga, Avip Bastakoti, Diego Eduardo García Reyes

Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Zentrum für Erneuerbare Energien (ZEE), Tennenbacher Str. 4, 79106 Freiburg,
Germany

ABSTRACT: Photovoltaics technology is progressing at a very fast rate, from the last few years production costs have
constantly gone down, and research has brought a lot of innovation into the market. This has made PV industry to
develop its technology at an impressive rate in the past 37 years. As a consequence, the PV market is often fluctuating.
Market analysts and research institutions provide very different overviews and forecasts of the market. However, this
information is not often found in a single source or properly analyzed. This paper compiles and compares reports on
the PV market from different sources with the purpose of showing the reader a general view of the current state of the
PV market, and the prospects for the next ten years, comparing the available information, organizing it into uniform
values and presenting it in an organized way, altogether with a conservative estimate made with the average value of
the different forecasts. The results of this study clearly show the main trend: the change from a multi-crystalline Silicon
dominated market in 2016 to a market dominated by monocrystalline PERC technology in 2018. A discussion on these
future trends finalizes the article.

Keywords: PERC, PERT, P-type Mono, P-type Multi, N-type Mono, Al BSF, HJT, IBC, Forecast, Energy-Policy,
Solar Energy Market, 531 Policy

1 INTRODUCTION Table 1: Key players in the PV (module) production in

2018[3]
With an impressive learning rate of 24% for the past
37 years, Photovoltaics (PV) is the fastest growing 300W 340W 345W
renewable energy source[1]. What started as a Silicon LONGi LONGi Jinko Solar
(Si)-based technology for semiconducting devices, has CSI Jinko Solar Trina Solar
completely transformed the industry of energy Jinko Solar Hanwha Q LONGi
conversion. The market is dominated by Si devices. Hanwha Q Trina Solar Hanwha Q
However, the architecture and technology of production JA Solar CSI CSI
of these devices is changing rapidly. Market data is a
vital source of information for manufacturing companies The solar cells commercially produced in the market
and investors. Retrieving and analyzing accurate data is can be classified in different ways, Figure 1, simplifies
of the utmost importance for planning and decision the different technologies used in the production and that
making. This paper will address the problem of are presented within the paper, to provide a clear
inconsistency in data across various reports, producers understating of what is been analyzed.
and try to estimate the development of the future market
in the PV sector. The International Technology
Roadmap for Photovoltaics (ITRPV), Solar Power
Europe, PV Infolink and PV-tech are some of the leading
experts in solar market analysis and forecast. The main
goal of this paper is to provide an intermediate value
which will provide a meaningful forecast while
addressing the volatility of the market in-between the
sources. This paper does not aim in producing its own
independent forecast however it aims in making the
forecast more accurate and reliable.

China and Taiwan, the world’s largest PV producers,

with over the 70% of the global market share, naturally
the companies of these countries are the largest
producers and the main drivers of the market. LONGi
Solar, with its extensive research in monocrystalline
Silicon (mono-Si) architecture, is now one of the price
setters in the field. This has led to a rapid shift in the
market towards mono-Si and with the new “531-Energy
Policy” which put a stop to the PV manufacturers in
China bringing a halt to their near-exponential growth,
some turbulence in the PV-field is expected[2].
Figure 1: Technology used in industrial solar cell
production[4]
2 METHODOLOGY
The main objective of this research work is to
present a clear overview of the PV market by
technology, to identify key trends, and to provide an own
short-term projection of the PV capacity and market
shares of the main technologies. The work starts by
conducting a literature review of the available
information. The consulted sources include online
available market data, reports from research institutions
and market analysts. However, the data acquired is not
homogeneous, it proceeds from sources such as PV

1
 M. Sc. Renewable Energy Engineering and Management – Seminar “Photovoltaics 2”, Winter Term 2018/ 2019
Infolink, PV-Tech, ITRPV, and Solar Power Europe,
this data also comes from sources that use different
forecasting models or come from reports that were
published in different years or that classify the
technologies in different ways. Therefore, in order to
compare and evaluate this data it was necessary to make
assumptions on the market, "2018" was defined as the
base year and afterwards, the data was classified into 2
categories, 2018 data, and future projections, then the
different technologies were grouped in common
categories as in Figure 1, considering, mono and multi-
crystalline Silicon (mc-Si) wafers, N-type and P-type,
and finally the passive emitter and rear cell (PERC)
technology, the last division is used because PERC is
forecasted to become a market standard in the future, so
its development is of great importance to any market
analyst.
After the whole database was organized and
classified, the data concerning the technology shares of
2018 was retrieved, three main sources were chosen, and
its estimations were compared. Two reports from the
market analyst PV infolink[5][6], and a report from PV
celltech[7], the ITRPV report had to be excluded
because it was impossible to extract the data in such a
way that could be compared with the other sources,
especially regarding the PERC technology that was not
considered in an independent way. Consequently, the
average of these three sources was calculated, projected
and graphed next to the data from the other sources to
provide a conservative picture of the current structure of
the market.
For the forecast of the global production capacity
and future technology development, a similar approach
was followed. The available forecasts were classified
according to the same technology groups. However, in
this case, two different types of forecast were
considered, a forecast of the overall production capacity
of the technologies and a forecast of the market share of
each technology.
The sources consulted for the capacity forecast were
PV infolink, the ITRPV, and Solar Power Europe (SPE),
while the data for the forecast of the market shares was
taken from the same sources as for the 2018 market
status. However, every forecast had a different timespan,
so it was necessary to extrapolate the data to get to a
common period of time, it was decided to project all the
forecasts to the year 2028 in order to analyze the
behavior of the PV market within the next decade.
Forecasting is a vital tool in approximating how the
market will behave at any given point of time in future.
This study deals with trend projection (extrapolation)
rather than forecasting because of the data constraints
and the lack of time. This study limits to gather different
forecasts and find an average as an own result, further
studies with access to more detailed data could elaborate
an own forecast model. Trend equation was used to
predict the trend as:
𝑌𝑌" = 𝑎𝑎 + 𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏 (1)
using the least squares principle, the points (a and b)
were computed as:
𝑛𝑛 ∑ 𝑡𝑡𝑌𝑌" − (∑ 𝑡𝑡)(∑ 𝑌𝑌" ) (2)
𝑏𝑏 =
𝑛𝑛 ∑ 𝑡𝑡 . − (∑ 𝑡𝑡).
∑ 𝑌𝑌" − 𝑏𝑏 ∑ 𝑡𝑡 (3)
𝑎𝑎 =
𝑛𝑛
and then the trend was extrapolated until 2028 which
almost all the sources lacked.
Error calculation between the sources estimates and
the intermediate value used in this study with the process
of Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD) and Mean Absolute
Deviation Percent (MADP) which is usually used to
calculate errors in sales forecast is as follows:
∑6478|𝑥𝑥4 − 𝑥𝑥̅ | (4)
𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 =
𝑛𝑛
∑<
;78|𝐹𝐹; − 𝐴𝐴; | (5)
𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 =
∑<
;78|𝐴𝐴; |
After all the data was extrapolated, the different
forecast values year by year were put together for
analysis of trends and an average estimation was
calculated. The average power output presented consists
of the average of the power output presented by the 3
different sources. While the market share graph consists
of the average of the market shares for each technology
presented by the different sources mentioned before.
Figure 2: Generalized methodology of the study
approach.
3 RESULTS
3.1 Current state of the market
Figure 3, shows a market mainly dominated by the
mc-Si, in contrast to a small share of mono. However, it
is already possible to see a large share of mono with
PERC technology. These market shares support the
statement of PERC becoming a market standard in the
next years. The data presented by the sources consulted
does not change much, with the exception of the market
shares stated for the monocrystalline PERC and the
mono, this is mainly due to the dates of publication of
the reports, PV infolink's report from 2017, labelled as
PV infolink (1), was expecting a smaller share of mono
PERC, while the most updated report from PV infolink,
published at the end of 2018 shows a much larger share,
showing how the development of this technology was
larger than the market expectations. The document
elaborated by PV infolink in 2018, labelled as PV
2
 M. Sc. Renewable Energy Engineering and Management – Seminar “Photovoltaics 2”, Winter Term 2018/ 2019

infolink (2), provides the most reliable data since it is the expected from the reports previous to December of 2018,
most recent, and therefore all its data should be real, with which have to assume and forecast of the behavior of the
less projections or assumptions, which could be last months.

100 Thin film

Market Share (%)

Mono N-type

Mono P-type PERC

Mono P-type
50
Multi P-type PERC

Multi P-type

0
PV celltech PV infolink (1) PV infolink (2) Average
12/18 9/17 12/18

Data source
Figure 3: Current state of the Market

3.2 Trend Projection: based on the values obtained from sources with highest
and lowest production scenarios. However, for our study
For the global estimate Figure 4, Equation(1), was purpose, the average scenario was used taking into
used to project the available data averaged from PV account the fluctuation of data across various models
infolink, ITRPV and SPE and the trend was projected up and forecasts.
to 2028 [4], [5], [8], [9]. The high and low estimates are
Production Capacity(GW)

800
PVinfolink
ITRPV
600
Solar Power EU

400 Average
High estimate
200 Low estimate

0
2015 2020 2025
Year
Figure 4: Global PV Production Capacity (2015-2028)

The average from the global production capacity Table 2: Summary of Errors in forecasting of Global
was taken as a reference for determining the power (G) and Technological(T) production.
production by each technology which has been extracted
from PV infolink and PV celltech as market shares[5],
[7]. These data were projected to get the values till 2028
and averaged out, making it possible to create a
consistent and realistic chart for various technologies
contributing to the global total production capacity.
MAD and MAPE were calculate using the
Equations (4) and (5),which are shown in Table 2.

3
 M. Sc. Renewable Energy Engineering and Management – Seminar “Photovoltaics 2”, Winter Term 2018/ 2019

Thin film
256
Production Capacity(GW) Mono N-type

Mono P-type PERC

64
Mono P-type

16 Multi P-type PERC

Multi P-type
4
Total

1
2015 2020 2025 2030
Year
Figure 5: Production Capacity forecast for different Solar cell technologies (2016-2028)

Figure 5, shows the production capacity of the
different technologies in GW and Figure 7, shows the
market share of the technologies in percentage.
It is seen from Figure 4, that the global production
capacity continues to increase up to 336.5GW in 2028.
This implies an increase in the overall production
capacity by a factor of 3.36 in the next 10 years.
Figure 5, also reveals a rapid boost in the production
of the P-type mono PERC cells and ultimately being the
market leaders in the future with a production of almost
250 GW by 2028. On the contrary, both the multi-
crystalline P-type Al-BSF and monocrystalline P-type
will be decommissioned in the early twenties. The
technologies like mono N-type, thin film and mono P-
type are expected to have a linear increment in their
market share.

100 100
multi p-type: Al BSF
Market Share (%)

Market Share (%)

PERC: multi p-type

mono p-type
50 50 PERC: mono p-type
mono n-type
Thin film

0 0
2016 2020 2024 2028 2017 2019 2021 2023 2025 2027
Year Year
Figure 6: Comparison between forecast of market share of PV technology PV infolink (left) and PVcelltech (right)

100
Thin film
Market Share (%)

80 Mono N-type
Mono P-type PERC
60
Mono P-type
40 Multi P-type PERC
20 Multi P-type

0
2016 2018 2020 2022 2024 2026 2028

Year
Figure 7: Market share of the PV technologies depicted as percentage of total

4
 M. Sc. Renewable Energy Engineering and Management – Seminar “Photovoltaics 2”, Winter Term 2018/ 2019
Figure 7 shows two already elaborated forecasts of
the PV technology market shares, they both were
extrapolated until the year 2028 to compare the trends
and obtain the average from Figure 7. By comparing the
two forecasts it is possible to see that they both agree on
the growth of PERC mono-Si technology, however the
main difference between these two forecasts comes from
the forecast of the mc-Si technology and the mc-Si
PERC technology, the PV celltech forecasts considers
that both mc-Si technologies will reduce their market
shares much faster, up to the point that, from 2021, these
technologies have no significant market share, while the
extrapolation of the trends presented by PV infolink
suggest that even in 2028 there will be a modest market
share of mc-Si, when combined with PERC technology.
Figure 7, shows the elaborated, average market
share of the different technologies in terms of percentage
of the total market production capacity.
The elaborated average forecast of the market shares
shows one main change in the PV market in the next ten
years: the large decrease in the market share of the mc-
Si that goes from around 70% of the total market in 2016
to completely disappear in 2025, at the same time it’s
evident the increase of PERC technologies in both mono
and multi-crystalline Silicon wafers, especially in mono-
Si, which will reach around 72% of the entire market.
The average forecast does not foresee an important
development of thin film technologies.
4 DISCUSSION
4.1 Problems with N-type technology
development
N-type technology still needs improvement in yield
rate and efficiency. PERC has better cost-effectiveness.
The rapid decline in the price of mono-PERC has
witnessed the shift from overall high-efficiency market
to low price trend. It is clearly difficult to gain profit with
TOPCon and HJT technologies as the price and cost
should remain flat.
Figure 5 and 7, both show the likelihood of mono
P-type PERC being the technology leader in the market
in the years to come.
The price drop due to the localization of equipment
for N-type is lower than PERC as the performance of
local equipment is not stable as foreign equipment. And
N-type uses silver paste and other auxiliary material due
to which price cannot be lowered. Therefore, mono
PERC gets a big share from N-type market[5].
Table 2, shows the errors in the data between the
data used in this study and the data from the sources.
ITRPV's high and low scenario forecast with very
optimistic and pessimistic data caused the data to
fluctuate between the two ends thus create a higher rate
of error in the MAD. However, MAPE results which are
more significant in these kinds of sales forecast shows
that the forecast error in PVcelltech is higher. But PV
celltech is dealing with Technology forecast hence it is
also within the acceptable limit of 5%.
1 CTM: Cell-to-Module
4.2 Advanced Technologies and forecast from
ITRPV
ITRPV predicts that market share of half cell
technology will increase to 40% (2028) from 5% (2018)
due to its advantages in reduction of interconnection
losses thereby, improvement of the CTM1 gains. Also,
modules with quarter cells are also expected to be
developed in the near future[8].
The market share of the bi-facial module is low, 8%
(2018) but is expected to have a market share of 35%
(2028) and it is expected to see few mono-facial modules
using bifacial cells. Hence the total share of Bifacial Cell
Technology is expected to own 40% of market share.
The bi-facial technology is mainly used due to the
increase in the number of cells exposed to light[8].
Suggestion on Shingled/overlapping cells, as per
ITRPV for the interconnection materials use of Cu-
ribbon is going to decrease to 55% of market share
(2028) from its existing 92% (2018), because Cu-wires
and shingled or overlapping cells are expected to
increase its market share from its existing below 3%
market shares respectively. Cu-wires is expected to own
at least 30% of the market share and shingled cells might
have 8% of market share (2028) respectively[8].
Glass-glass as back cover technologies in the ITRPV
is predicted to occupy 40% of market share of back
cover technologies (2028) from its 10% market share
(2018)[8].
4.3 Comments on accuracy and reliability of the
data
The approach used in order to generate the current
state of the market in Figure 3 is reasonable, however
the data was visually obtained from the graphs because
of the lack of access to the actual datasheets of the
reports, which bring a significant uncertainty to the
results, also, having re arranged the shares in order to
find a common base of technologies to compare them
changes the quality of the data acquired. However, the
data is reliable and comes from different sources, so the
calculated averages provide a fair, conservative estimate
of the main state of the market, capable of providing the
reader with a general understanding of the current
situation.
The elaboration of the market shares forecast for the
period 2018-2028, shown in Figure 6, provides a higher
degree of uncertainty because, apart from the facts
mentioned before, the timespan of the existing reports
was too short, barely until 2023, so the data for the
period 2023-2028 was extrapolated using a simplistic
linear regression model that does not take into account
as many variables as a real forecast model would, more
important, a forecast model is just an approximation,
certain changes, like the "531 policy" in China, cannot
be predicted even by the most accurate model. Also, the
data presented in these reports can be biased, specially
when the model is a market analysis that can be biased
towards certain technology. These variables are very
significant in driving a market. Therefore, although this
forecast remains accurate in a mathematical model, it is
5
 M. Sc. Renewable Energy Engineering and Management – Seminar “Photovoltaics 2”, Winter Term 2018/ 2019

not possible to determine what time and circumstances 7 REFERENCES

will eventually reveal. However, as stated before,
calculating the average of these sources brings the reader
a very general understanding of the market behavior and
the main trends remain visible and coherent with what
was found in the literature review.
5 CONCLUSIONS
The PV market is currently composed mainly by mc-
Si with Al-BSF technology and mono-Si which
incorporates PERC technology, mono-Si without PERC
still has a modest market share.
During the year 2018, the average of the market
estimations shows that the PV technology sector has a
42% mono and a 55% mc-Si, the share of thin film
technologies is around 3% of the total market. Also, the
current market has a 92% market share of P-type cells
and a 5% N-type cells. The PERC technology has an
overall market share of 37%.
It can be seen from the results that PERC technology
both mono type and multi type is expected to increase in
the future. Hence PERC will to dominate the PV market
because of its cost effectiveness and performance
advantages. Al BSF is expected to lose the market share
and decommissioned by 2025. These two developments
were also expected in almost all the references.
The companies LONGi, Jinko Solar, CSI and Trina
solar are the current market leaders in PV technology
production, these companies are from China and
Taiwan, the world’s largest PV manufacturers and will
probably continue leading the market in the short term.
[1] D. S. Philipps, F. Ise, W. Warmuth, P. Conferences,
and C. GmbH, “Photovoltaics Report,” p. 47.
[2] “China-531 to accelerate demise of multi;
polysilicon consumption decline to 3g/W by
2022,” PV Tech. [Online]. Available:
https://www.pv-tech.org/editors-blog/china-531-
to-accelerate-demise-of-multi-polysilicon-
consumption-decline-to. [Accessed: 20-Jan-2019].
[3] “Mono-si Module Exports Experience Significant
Growth in 2018; 2019 Mono-si Shipment Share to
be on par with Multi-si.” [Online]. Available:
https://www.energytrend.com/research/20181224-
12906.html. [Accessed: 20-Jan-2019].
[4] C. Lin, “Market Outlook of N-Type Technology,”
Dec-2018.
[5] “PV InfoLink - How Will Future N-Type
Technology Develop?” [Online]. Available:
https://en.pvinfolink.com/post-view.php?ID=135.
[Accessed: 19-Jan-2019].
[6] PV infolink, “PV Market Overview & Trend
Analysis of DW/ Black Silicon,” Sep-2017.
[7] “PV CellTech 2019 to showcase new PV
Technology Roadmap forum | PV Tech.” [Online].
Available: https://www.pv-tech.org/editors-
blog/pv-celltech-2019-to-showcase-new-pv-
technology-roadmap-forum. [Accessed: 19-Jan-
2019].
[8] ITRPV, “ITRPV Results 2017 including maturity
report 2018,” ITRPV, 9, Sep. 2018.
[9] Solar Power Europe, “Global Market Outlook 2018-
2022,” Jun. 2018.

Mono technology will increase its market share until

obtaining the Silicon market’s largest segment, the main
reasons for this are the development of the PERC
technology (with great efforts in research and
investment from companies like LONGi to reduce the
cost of mono-Si production), PERC will keep increasing
its market share until it eventually becomes a market
standard.

In order to realize a better estimation of the market

behavior, it is necessary to obtain a better access to the
information, the data from the reports must be obtained
directly from the sources, altogether with the data sheets,
instead of being merely obtained visually from graphs.
Also, in order to perform a better evaluation of the
market, more knowledge on the way the forecasting is
done is necessary, in order to understand the forecasting
model and to be able to generate a reliable estimate.

6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Dr.

Ralf Preu and the tutors Puzant Baliozian and Sebastian
Nold for their valuable insights and expert opinions into
the topic. Although a review paper in a short time of two
weeks is very tough, their constant motivation and
comments for our improvement and finalizing of the
paper is much appreciated.

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