Here’s How Chinese Firms Will Produce Solar for 36 Cents per Watt

[jpak]

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/solar-cost-reduction-drivers-in-2017

<snip>

The answer is technology improvement. In Mehta's latest report, he forecasted that top Chinese manufacturers will be making solar modules for 36 cents per watt by 2017. But with very little room for polysilicon prices to keep falling, refinements to technology -- increasing conversion efficiency, reducing yield loss and automating production lines -- become absolutely critical, as the following chart indicates.

From 2013 to 2014, the cost reductions from Chinese companies will only be about a penny per watt. But from 2014 to 2017, companies may shave off another 10 cents.

"This is due to a very large drop in labor costs," said Mehta. "We need a significant increase in the degree of automation employed by Chinese companies to mitigate labor inflation there."

Because labor costs have been relatively low in China, manufacturing processes there have been much more dependent on people. But labor costs have increased by roughly 10 percent annually since 2009, and manufacturers will eventually have to react by automating their production lines -- in line with with Korean, Taiwanese, Japanese, European and American producers. GTM Research projects a 25 percent decline in labor costs from 2012 to 2017 due to automation.

<more>

If labor costs are not a factor - why can't US cell & module manufacturers compete with China?

Because our so-called "free market" republicans do not support our solar industry like the Chinese communists do theirs.

...and they are eating our lunch.

We coulda been a contenda....

yup

[Sherman A1]

1. K&R

Thanks for posting.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

2. Erm, mebbe not

A Material That Could Make Solar Power “Dirt Cheap”

[phantom power]

3. Good to see Chinese labor pushing back against being treated like meat-sack robots