Sanyo, Kyocera, Sharp, Mitsubishi Take Charge Of Global Solar Market

[hatrack]

With oil prices heading toward $79 a barrel, the age of the solar panel is dawning at last, and electronics companies from the land of the rising sun are leading the way. Decades of money-losing research and development are finally paying off at Japanese electronics giants like Sharp, Sanyo, Mitsubishi and Kyocera, who together control about 50% of the global market. "The solar units of these companies are already real businesses, and they are only going to become larger parts of their operations," says Yuki Sugi, a Lehman Bros. analyst in Tokyo who covers Sharp and Sanyo.

Sharp, the world's market leader, sold more than $1 billion worth of solar panels last year and expects a 28% increase this year. Sanyo expects a 60% sales increase this year, and at Kyocera, solar panels account for 5% of the company's total sales and 12% of its operating profit. "Solar is a booming business," says Sharp president Katsuhiko Machida, "and it is one of our core targets for growth."

With few oil resources of its own, Japan has long made alternative-fuel research and conservation national priorities. Meanwhile, electronics companies have been deeply interested in the power management of their devices and in silicon-based materials like computer chips--technologies at the heart of silicon solar-panel manufacturing. Unlike in other countries, where oil and gas companies tend to research solar energy, electronics companies here have no other energy divisions to worry about compromising.

In Japan panel companies and the national government kick-started solar-power adoption with subsidies. A consumer who installs a solar-panel array on a house can sell surplus energy to the local utility. Germany has implemented that model most successfully, and it has been adopted not just in Japan but in South Korea and other European countries. Even with incentives, start-up costs are high, about $20,000 per household in Japan. "The biggest priority now is to reduce costs," says Seiichi Kiyama, general manager of the commercial group of Sanyo Electric's solar division. True cost competitiveness is within reach. Panel costs have fallen 66% over the past decade. Company executives and outside analysts estimate that a further 50% reduction, which would make solar-powered-electricity costs comparable with other types of fuel, is possible within the next decade. And because natural-gas and coal prices are increasing along with oil prices, the cost competitiveness of solar power could come a lot earlier.

EDIT

http://www.time.com/time/globalbusiness/article/0,9171,1096483,00.html

[skids]

1. FWIW... Sanyo the only one I see doing amorphous cells.

After a cursory browse each webpage, Sanyo is the only one of these major producers I saw doing the new flexible steel-substrate printed cells. Those are where the real cost savings are going to be. They may not be as efficient on a area/watt (top efficiency in lab is 20% whereas crystals are getting 30%+) basis but they will be much cheaper per watt than the crystal silicon. (Though there is a "sliver" technology in the works to halve the cost of crystals.)

It is signifigant that a large company like Sanyo has access to the amorphous process, though... bodes well for its future.

PV skeptics fair warning -- as soon as the new technologies scale up, the old addage of "these take more energy to produce than they give out" will be done for. Though we all know you won't stop saying it :P