- 21
- July
2013
Prof. Eicke Weber is very optimistic about the solar industry
Ecosummit TV: Prof. Eicke Weber, Director of Fraunhofer ISE, is very optimistic about the future of the solar industry. Firstly, the PV cost curve is going down continuously. Even in Germany with Alaska-type sunshine, we can produce electricity with silicon-based PV for 10-12 cents/kWh. At this cost level, grid parity is already outperformed since 1 kWh costs 22 cents (net) in Germany if you buy it from your local utility. Making your own electricity and storing it in a solar battery is a smart economic idea. Secondly, the global solar market will grow 10 times from 30 GW/year in 2012 to 300 GW/year by 2025. At the same time, higher efficiencies and lower production costs make PV competitive with onshore wind and hydro power. The current oversupply of 60 GW/year is a temporary phenomenon that causes trouble for PV manufacturers for another 1-2 years. Afterwards, Europe should reenter the PV industry with a “multi-GW solar Airbus project” to drive the enormous PV industry again as a technology leader.
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- May
2011
Ecosummit TV – ECO11 – Frank Siebke – Good Energies – Cleantech VC
In his talk “PV – Is the Party Over?” at Ecosummit 2011, Frank Siebke, Investment Director at Good Energies, gives a detailed overview of the current and future trends of the PV industry from an investor’s point of view. Frank says that the party is not over yet, solar has still a huge potential. After polycrystalline silicon solar (1G) and thin-film solar (2G) now we enter the third solar technology generation (3G) which is organic PV (OPV).
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