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Roundtable
Next Steps for Government-
Industry Collaboration
in Photovoltaic Technologies
Moderator:
John Lushetsky
U.S. Department of Energy
Panel Members:
Doug Rose, SunPower
Charlie Gay, Applied Materials
Kevin Hutchings, IBM
John Gloekler, Apogee Solar
James Moreland, SolarWorld
Panel members were asked to characterize the role of their company in the
PV industry. They responded as follows:
Dr. Rose: SunPower is the leader in most PV markets in the U.S., with a
worldwide workforce of about 5,000 employees.
Dr. Gay: Applied Solar, part of Applied Materials, makes equipment used
to manufacture solar panels around the world; the world’s largest producer of
equipment for panels; about 1,500 employees in the solar business.
Kevin Hutchings: IBM is “at the center” of several semiconductor collabo -
rations and has supported SRC, SEMATECH, and others. With its experience,
skills, and intellectual property in semiconductors, IBM has much to offer the
PV industry.
John Gloekler: Apogee Solar is developing a 50-micron solar cell and has de-
veloped a fabless process to totally outsource manufacturing to existing facilities.
Jim Moreland: Solar World of Oregon, with headquarters in Bonn, Germany,
is expanding and hiring in a state with 10 percent unemployment; working with
silicon and multicrystalline silicon.
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THE ISSUE OF A PV ROADMAP (CONT’D)
Mr. Lushetsky thanked the panel members and asked them to continue the
discussion of a PV roadmap. He said that contrary to the impression of some,
this discussion was “not part of a DoE plan to exert control over the industry.”
In fact, he said, much of the conversation was initiated by materials suppliers
who had approached DoE and asked for guidance in understanding where the
industry is going. They said that they were used to dealing with roadmaps in the
semiconductor industry and suggested that DoE could play a role. “What would
you say to those suppliers,” he asked, “that could help them be suppliers to you,
and ultimately help you to be more competitive?”
Dr. Gay clarified that despite the name of Applied Materials, it is not a
materials company but an equipment company that works closely with materials
companies like Dow Corning and DuPont, and with the producers of feedstocks.
He said what they can do is combine the tool with the material in a way that re-
duces cost for the PV customer. They have met with the raw materials suppliers,
he said, and described their strategic plan around the roadmaps.
A ROADMAP TO GUIDE THEIR BUSINESS
“Everybody has a roadmap that guides their business,” said Dr. Gay. “This
is what allows them to receive financing and to establish their identity. We’ve
brought together a lot of folks who want to help. In PV we relate to things that
are in our past, so it’s exciting to have people from the IC industry here wanting
to help. What I think we can do is have a helpful exchange about what is similar
and what is different. One thing that is different is technology half-life. In IC, the
technology half-life is about 18 months, when another node is reached—Moore’s
observation. In PV, the technology half-life may last a decade. So in PV we do
need to plan, but part of it is a set of ideas about how to bring in financing.”
Dr. Gay said that the two industries sometimes seemed more similar than
they were. He recalled the comment by Dr. Rose that PV may use 5-, 6- or 8-inch
wafers. “You know where the idea of a wafer came from?” he asked. “From the
IC industry. We got from them the notion that the form factor needed to look
round like a wafer, instead of like a rectangle or something else. People start
to differentiate around those fundamental ideas. What we want to do is lay the
foundations for the long haul, and get the time constants right. We need to have
the universities link in here.” He referred to an earlier comment by Jim Sites about
enabling students and faculty to engage in ways that allow innovation to emerge.
REACHING OUT TO THE BANKING COMMUNITY
Dr. Gay also noted that one of biggest barriers to the PV industry today is
in the banking community. “They look for consultants to guide them on what
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technologies in PV to invest in. I’ve been a consultant,” he said, “when I had no
job. Banks rely on other people, when they should be calling Jim Sites. Part of
the networking that could be helpful here is to be aware of the fact we’re bringing
in a lot of new stakeholders, and then call the Jim Siteses. It takes the IC world,
the materials supplier world, and the banking community to actually create the
financing models that could allow this industry to scale. We have a chance here
to aggregate a lot of stakeholders, because we want to change the situation of
where we get energy.”
A ROADMAP TOWARD COMMON GROUND
Dr. Gay noted that PV stakeholders also have a lot of work to do in educating
the pubic about the need for renewable energy. “We need all of you, and all the
stakeholders we can possibly engage to try to get together. Whether we call it a
roadmap or something else, this process of getting together and forming partner-
ships in setting goals on how much clean energy can be adopted and how much
solar can be adopted would be a great thing for us to build on after this confer-
ence. Finding that common ground is very difficult, but it’s up to each of us to
find partners with whom we can cooperate.”
Dr. Rose agreed with the need to gather and communicate this information.
“Having the new companies learn more quickly where they should look and
be able to communicate information upward is essential. But I want to caution
against the idea of a roadmap that gives what some of the materials suppliers
want—the roadmap they’re used to in the IC industry. Every industry is different.
The makers of parts for jet engines are probably used to dealing with two or three
customers, but that would not make sense for the IC industry, and it certainly
would not make sense for the PV industry. We deal with some suppliers who are
really uncomfortable because it is different from what they are used to, but they
see that here’s an industry that could grow extremely rapidly, and they’ll deal with
the complexity of it in order to participate.”
GUIDANCE FOR SPENDING LIMITED R&D FUNDS
Mr. Hutchings said that one benefit of a roadmap for the photovoltaic industry
was that it could help extend the value of limited R&D money. “A company can’t
do everything,” he said. “We discussed giving people the freedom to pursue all
kinds of ideas, versus a narrow view. But limited money for R&D is the reality.
One benefit of a roadmap is to make sure those limited R&D dollars are spent well.
Whether or not you take the high-end, top-level view of cents per kWh, which
makes a lot of sense, you’ll ultimately have to figure out how to get there. You’ll
get into discussion with suppliers who say: I only have this much money to spend,
where do I spend it? That’s coming—especially if you believe this is all about how
to strengthen manufacturing in the United States. If so, you have to look at the
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cost per kilowatt-hour, and say is that coming down fast enough for us to compete
globally. And once you can answer that, you’ll find out whether the roadmap is
adequate, because it should tell you where to spend these limited R&D dollars.” It
is the same for the DoE, he added, which also has limited money, and has to decide
where to spend it. “You need some guidance. I think there’s a need for roadmaps.
There are details that have to be worked out that are unique to the PV industry.”
WHY COMPANIES NEED STANDARDS
Dr. Guha added an argument in favor of standards. “Companies need stan -
dards to get involved and grow the critical mass of this industry,” he said. “With-
out standards, how do I know [that] I can have a market for my product and my
R&D dollars?” Citing his own experience, he noted a time when there was no
market for Wi-Fi; “But there were six standards before there was any market.
As the market came, one standard emerged: 802.11b. This was followed by ‘g,’
and then ‘n.’” Knowing those standards in advance, he said, gave companies the
ability to invest in new technologies with lower market risk.
Dr. Moreland said that his company has to be able to talk to its suppliers with
or without standards. “What I’ve found,” he said, “is that they have their own
idea of what PV is and what PV needs. They try to help us but end up hurting us
in terms of the quality of the materials. So that conversation has to happen, and
maybe, to some low level, at least some standards would be useful.”
DECADES OF WORK ON STANDARDS
Dr. Gay said that he didn’t want anyone to leave the symposium thinking
there were no standards. Since the early 1980s, he said, a consensus process
had been at work throughout the industry to agree on standards as they were
needed. The process of setting PV standards is organized by the International
Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and followed by manufacturers of modules,
installers, and others in the industry. “This is always evolving and improving,”
he said. “A lot of people have worked for a very long time on this, especially
the technical committee on PV15 charged with assuring the quality, durability,
electrical integrity, safety, and so on for the PV industry. “In addition,” he said,
“NREL, Sandia, Brookhaven, and others have worked on environmental, health,
15 The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is a global organization that has prepared
and published international standards for all electrical, electronic, and related technologies since its
formation in 1906. Its technical committees are charged with preparing standards on many electro -
technical topics; e.g., TC 47 concerns semiconductor devices, and TC 82 concerns solar photovoltaic
energy systems. TC 82 holds a plenary meeting every 18 months where working groups are charged
with writing standards on many topics. TC 82, created in 1981, has recently considered standards for
such topics as flat-plate PV modules, concentrator PV modules and assemblies, and installation and
safety requirements for PV generators.
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and safety standards and served as an independent third-party validator of safety
standards. All of this,” he said, “is to ensure the global integrity of what is being
offered and warranted for the customer.”
OPPORTUNITIES FOR PRECOMPETITIVE PARTNERSHIPS
Mr. Lushetsky added perspective on the difference between the PV industry
and the semiconductor industry. “Put simply,” he said, “the IC industry is one
materials set with an infinite number of circuits; the PV industry is one circuit
with an infinite number of materials.” He said that that formulation helped him
to frame the issue for himself. “Where the IC industry was able to collaborate
on materials, we clearly run into differences in PV.” For other technical issues,
however, such as metrology, material handling, and deposition tooling at a high
level, he suggested that opportunities for precompetitive partnerships might be
found. Another opportunity for collaboration may be installation cost, which
dominates total system cost.
Dr. Rose said that he, too, could see areas for productive collaboration, and
there are some ongoing now. For inverters there is a standard now in place that
addresses anti-islanding, interconnections, and safety, but there is also intense
development and standards activity to integrate inverters with the smart grid,
providing information and voltage support to the grid while increasing power
point matching within the array and decreasing installation time. In addition,
there are “areas that the industry has poked at but hasn’t closed on.” This included
the module energy rating. “This is one I’d love to see good collaboration on,” he
said, “so consumers can know that if they buy a particular module, and put it in
a particular climate, they can expect a certain amount of energy production.” He
suggested that many areas naturally invite collaboration, but he proposed letting
those areas “develop organically while the major emphasis goes to the big picture
roadmap that we communicate up to the Congress and other constituents.”
A ROADMAP AROUND A CORE OF INSTITUTIONS
Dr. Gay suggested building a roadmap around a core of institutions, such
as the partnership that currently exists among NREL, the Colorado School of
Mines, Colorado State University, and the University of Colorado at Boulder.
“There’s a model that works well,” he said, “and we could replicate it around
other national labs.” He said that one area of emphasis for a roadmap should be
integrating PV into the grid, and within that area, to improve the communication
of grid information to the utilities. “The United States lags China by a decade
in this,” he said. “We get grid information late because our systems gather and
aggregate data only every 15 minutes. It’s one reason we’ve had blackouts in the
Northeast and Northwest.” He said that the electrical grid in China has real-time
detectors that display the waveform constantly so that operators can act immedi -
ately on current information. He also said a roadmap should plan how to integrate
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renewable power into the grid, moving PV-generated power from the Southwest
throughout the nation, just as wind generation companies are planning to move
power “from North Dakota to places where it’s needed. It’s the same paradigm
the rest of the world is already working on,” he said, “and they are ahead of us.
So I’d vote for pulling in the national labs more closely, building the relationships
to the universities, and expanding how we think about real-time use and where
we link solar with the grid.”
Mr. Hutchings raised the issue of whether individual PV companies would be
willing to raise the money needed to achieve a roadmap. The industry would first
have to decide whether the rate of improvement is now adequate for the companies
and the United States. If it is not considered adequate, U.S. companies may decide
a roadmap is desirable. This may cause them first to address the issue of what is
precompetitive and what is not, he said. Then they may have to pool resources,
“which is what happened in semiconductor industry for different reasons.”
A LACK OF TRAINED PEOPLE
Dr. Gloekler said that one of biggest challenges to the U.S. solar industry is
that it has been unable to commercialize technology rapidly enough, especially
when compared to Chinese firms. This, he said, was due to a lack of people
skilled in commercializing technologies. And it is true for many industries, he
said, where the United States has advanced technologies, but the transfer from
lab to full-scale production proves to be more difficult and time-consuming than
estimated. He said that it was not a question of more spending, but of bringing
more talent from the semiconductor industry. As an example, he said that Dick
Swanson, the founder of SunPower, credited the six months he spent in Austin at
SEMATECH with grounding him in essential principles of silicon manufactur-
ing. “There’s a very large challenge in doing baseline processes and developing
reliability around process development that’s not in the industry today,” he said.
“We need the talent pool in here from experienced bases that can help us drive
these technologies a lot faster to market.”
Dr. Moreland said the industry also needs to expand the pool of young tal -
ent. One way, he said, was to work through a consortium like the Silicon Solar
Consortium (SiSoC), where industry members form partnerships, determine what
is competitive and what is precompetitive, and develop their own working rela-
tionships. At the same time, they can stimulate and help students gain experience
in PV so there are more knowledgeable people to hire.
START-UPS UNDER PRESSURE
Mr. Lushetsky asked Dr. Gloekler, because he represented an early-stage
start-up, to describe the current challenges to his firm and compare them with
the challenges of 12 months ago when financing and other issues were more
favorable. Dr. Gloekler said, “I can tell you there’s almost no investment out there
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today. VCs consider solar a commodity, which is the death knell any time you’re
trying to raise money.” He said that it was very hard to get VC interest “even if
you have innovative technologies that can shift the game.” He said that the VCs
“really want capex16 efficiency. One, we have to show that there’s essentially no
technology risk. Two, our time to market has to be one to two years. Three, we
need to run it on a lean model overall. You can only achieve that as a start-up if
you have the ability to use an SVTC or some other type of prototyping facility
that allows you to take your one area of technology, prove it, and sell it with the
entire supply chain intact.” He also said that “the standardization of equipment
interfaces is going to be pretty fundamental to us, so we can sell to many manu-
facturers. Start-ups are under a lot of pressure right now.”
WORKING WITH UNIVERSITIES
Mr. Lushetsky asked how companies could work more closely with universi-
ties, and Dr. Moreland said that in Oregon he had significant relationships with
a consortium of universities, some of which were good in characterization and
some in engineering. One university sends interns at the undergraduate level to
work with the firm for about nine months, and the students use that experience
to write papers that help them get their degree. Another university sends masters
students to work in the factory, and they write their thesis based on the work
they do. They are considered employees, and the company has a realistic setting
in which to evaluate them. “If they’re good,” he said, “we hire them. Win-win.”
Dr. Gay said that Applied Materials worked with about a dozen universities
on specialized projects, typically electronic or optical modeling tasks, and is also
part of the SRC program and the consortium headed by North Carolina State
University. “We participate in working with universities either directly or through
these consortia. We see that as a critical part of building up the talent pool.” He
said that many of the faculty at partner universities send their graduate students
to his company when they complete their studies. “Those labs and those students
are how we’ve been able to go from five employees three and a half years ago to
1,500 employees today. Five or 10 years ago that would have been impossible to
do. We need those students to be in the pipeline.”
DISCUSSION
More Partnering Between Agencies
George Rozgonyi of North Carolina State University said that he would like
to see more government partnering between agencies. Referring to the request by
Elaine Ulrich of Congresswoman Gifford’s office for some action items to present
16 Abbreviation for capital expenditure.
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to the Congress, he suggested that participants forward a more complete list of
needs. “I have my personal list,” he said. “If I look at my colleagues in the states
who need graduate students, I would say we need a competitive program to support
applicants to graduate school and make it attractive enough for people to apply.”
The universities also need equipment, he said—specifically enhancements to exist-
ing university equipment so it is more useful to industry, including diagnostic and
processing equipment (NC State), computer simulations (Texas Tech), and equip-
ment in the DoE center at Georgia Tech. “We need to have a focused action item for
enhancing these PV-oriented university programs. I think the government and NSF
program should be recognized for what it is—an industry/university cooperative
research consortium—and better coordinated with DoE and DoD and NIST and
the national labs.” Ms. Ulrich thanked Dr. Rozgonyi for this request, and asked the
group for more, especially “what you all feel you need collectively.”
PV Will Be Successful; Will the United States?
Dr. Rose agreed that the need for more student funding for PV is a good ex-
ample of the bigger picture referred to by Dr. Rozgonyi. “When I was at NREL,
and when I was at First Solar,” he said, “I used to worry that if we didn’t reduce
costs, PV may never fulfill its potential; it would always be the technology of the
future. The good news is that that’s no longer the case. PV in the rest of world is
going to be very successful. And a few U.S. companies will be part of that success.
The challenge before us is what can we do in the United States to have large-scale
manufacturing and use in this country? It will take actions on a big scale, because
that is what other countries are doing. If we compare the level of U.S. funding on
PV to the importance of it and to what other countries are spending, the gap is
evident. We need to better coordinate the labs, pull in more labs that are working
on other things, and build the downstream channels, for instance by aiding demand
with a green bank or other mechanisms. When we put that whole list together we’ll
have the action plan that will make the United States the leader in clean technol-
ogy—instead of wondering why those other countries were so successful.”
Richard Bendis said he would like to make a “closing comment that’s posi-
tive.” He reported that he had just heard of a $75 million award from a consortium
of VC firms to a new company formed to manufacture PV panels. He expressed
the hope that this news heralds a positive note for the solar industry at large,
especially since many companies have had a tough time securing VC funding
during the height of the recent recession.
A Closing Word on the Value of Roadmaps
David King, who said he had worked both with NIST and a range of private
firms, offered a closing comment on the value of roadmaps, especially of the type
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developed by SEMATECH. He focused on three points: One, roadmaps are pow-
erful instruments for federal agencies to use in planning disbursement of federal
funds for programs viewed as germane and with commercial potential. Two, they
are powerful tools for companies inventing and developing technology—not only
new materials but also new manufacturing equipment. Because the roadmap goes
to companies beyond a particular sphere of influence, it can bring in partners who
find the technology germane and judge it a timely fit with market conditions.
And three, a roadmap is a powerful tool for people to study if they’re in graduate
school or even high school and planning a career. “When will this technology be
ready?” he said. “Clearly, if it’s going to be 15 years before you are creating new
jobs, that’s not a place for me to be. If job will be there in three to five years, the
roadmap will tell me—and I can get myself ready.”
