Chinese Select Solar Wafer Recycler for 500 MW Project
The Chinese government in Jiangsu province has signed a letter of intent with the fast growing solar cell manufacturer ReneSolar to supply the cells for a 500 MW solar project which will be one of the largest of its kind so far in China.
China produces about half of the world solar cell supply, but till now it has exported most of it. While the country uses more solar hot water than any other nation - solar PV installed in the country so far represents a mere 0.01% of the nation’s power generation capacity.
However, the Chinese government has put in place a renewable energy requirement to get 1,800 megawatts from solar by 2020, per their NDRC.
The Chinese solar company ReneSola is a global manufacturer; producing roughly 7 million wafers a month and supplying a number of leading solar manufacturers like BP and SunPower.
ReneSolar has a highly efficient and sustainable business model - - recycling:
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It recycles waste wafers from the semi-conductor industry and scrap polysilicon into feedstock to supply the world’s largest solar PV production line.
ReneSolar has been able to steadily increase the amount of useable feedstock from each ton of wafers processed, while also increasing efficiency.
In the process they have been able to reduce wafer thickness by a third, significantly increasing wafer yield. By decreasing their silicon consumption to just 6.3 grams per watt, ReneSola is squeezing more out of less.
As the worlds largest recycler of scrap wafers in solar panels; it is able to supply the product at discount prices - creating higher margins to its customers. For 2009 the company forecast sales of US$700 million dollars.
Image from ReneSolar
Via Solar Daily
Also, have already begun what will be a 1,000 MW plant by 2020
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2006-06/03/content_607740.htm
“China, the world’s second-biggest energy consumer after the United States, is pushing the use of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar to generate electricity. At the beginning of the year the government passed the country’s first law on renewable energies.
Beijing aims to increase renewable consumption in the energy mix from the current 7 per cent to 15 per cent by 2020.
China’s major power companies have been ordered to ensure 5 per cent of their electricity generators are fuelled by renewable energy sources by 2010, Zhang Guobao, vice-minister of the NDRC, the nation’s top economic planning body, has said.”
According to multiple sources (PV News, Photon International), China produced about a third of the world’s solar cell supply, not half. In 2009 that fraction will almost certainly increase, but I doubt it will be half. Still, that’s pretty impressive considering that just a decade ago China’s share of the market was a big fat zero.
As for ReneSolar’s “highly efficient and sustainable business model,” wafers from recycled silicon were the rule, not the exception in the PV industry a decade ago. The problem is that the PV industry now uses more silicon than the entire microelectronics industry does, so it can’t really survive microelectronics castoffs anymore. An individual company like RenaSolar can, provided it doesn’t mind limiting its size to about 10% of the microelectronics industry, but the PV industry as a whole cannot. So while RenaSolar’s business model might be highly efficient and sustainable for itself, the PV industry as a whole has already been there, done that, and can no longer sustain itself that way.
Sorry, I should have said the PV industry “can’t really survive ON microelectronics castoffs anymore.”