Reported by Jeanny H. Lim

What do you see as the trends and market forces driving PV technology in the second half of 2011?

The solar incentives are getting revised in many markets, and much favorable to rooftop applications, just like what you saw in Italy, Germany and others. Therefore, the PV industry peers are trying their best to lower the cost, launch new products for rooftop installations, and, develop much higher efficiency solar products. As you know, unlike the utility-scale plants, rooftop projects are always with limited area, so, high-efficiency is the best way to get maximum power in rooftop, enabling users to enjoy high return on investment.

How are PV prices expected to develop in the second half?

With lower solar incentives and more supply in solar value chain, 2011 would definitely be the year to see pricing correction from upstream to downstream. The second half of 2011 would look like the second half of 2009 with PV component pricing getting lower towards the end of this year, which would lead to 1.20-1.30 US$/watt for module pricing then.

Where do you put your focus this year, in terms of business growth and technology development?

European markets such as Italy, Germany, France, Belgium and eastern EU are still the main focused target for us, while the U.S., Australia and India are showing very nice growth and huge potential. We also believe China would be the next giant soon. We supplied 7 MW high-efficiency solar modules to Nanjing South Railway Station in China this year, the largest monomer BAPV projects in the world. Regarding the technology development, as mentioned before, high-efficiency would always be CSUN’s focus. We are not only the first company to successfully commercialize the Selective Emitter solar cell in the world in 2008, but also kept developing the cutting-edge solar products for our clients. In 2011, we are expanding our solar cell lines?the average efficiency is expected to be over 19%.

Jeanny H. Lim is Editor-in-Chief of InterPV. Send your comments to swied@infothe.com.