Recording of Tuesday, June 18, 2024 | The smarter E Europe Conferences 2024 | Conference Program | Language: English | Duration: 14:34 .

Western World Urged to Revitalize Solar Manufacturing Industry Amid Global Demand and Reliance on China

The speaker addresses the pressing need for global trends in integrated photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing to combat climate change by transitioning electrical, industrial, and mobility systems into renewable energy. This requires producing hundreds of gigawatts to terawatts of solar products annually. Currently, China is the predominant producer, but there is a call for Western countries like Europe and the USA to rejuvenate their manufacturing capabilities. Reviving domestic production entails establishing a complete value chain from quartz through silicon metal and polysilicon to wafers, cells, and modules. Additionally, there's an urgent necessity for equipment manufacture and setting up robust supply chains including sources for silver, chemicals, foils, graphite etc. Europe has strong research institutions but needs rapid transition capabilities between research and industrial application. Furthermore, training skilled manpower remains critical as unlike China which already possesses such workforce expertise; regions like Europe must train workers from scratch—a daunting task when scaling up to gigafactories requiring thousands of employees. Challenges also lie in securing crucial materials like glass—critical shortages exist both in Europe and even more so in the USA despite investments driven by initiatives like IRA. The focus then shifts towards selecting optimal technologies across various PV components ensuring minimal total cost ownership while achieving efficient Levelized Cost of Energy (LZE).

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Speaker

Dr. Peter Fath
CEO
RCT Solutions GmbH
Germany

Talk of session: What's Hot in Solar Technology: New Tech Trends To Lower Costs & Improve Solar Product Functionality

The advances in technology along the solar value chain in recent years have been breathtaking: Innovations have included considerably larger wafers, new cell technologies, much higher-efficiency solar modules, smarter inverters with management systems that can control fully electrified high-tech homes and less material-intensive fixed or tracking mounting systems that can be installed faster and boost system yields. This session will provide an overview of the latest technologies.

Further Talks of this session:

Welcome and Introduction

Speaker

Dr. Harry Wirth
Director, Division Power Solutions
Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE
Germany

To Talk

PV Cell & Module Technology Trends - Past, Present, Future

Speaker

Molly Morgan
Senior Research Analyst
Exawatt
United Kingdom

To Talk

Opportunities and Developments in Balance of Systems

Speaker

To Talk

Finding the Right Inverters for Any Purpose

Speaker

Arvid Bürkle
Head of Product Lifecycle Management
KACO new energy GmbH - A Siemens Company
Germany

To Talk

Fire Chat: What's Needed in Solar to Bring the Technology to the Next Level?

Speaker

Helena Li
Executive President
Trina Solar
Singapore

To Talk