Agenda

Day two gets off to a flying start, with one of the most exciting developments now – the prospect of upstream PV manufacturing moving back out of Asia and into the U.S., Europe, India and other regions globally including the Middle-East. This session will hear from the companies that are at the forefront of setting up and optimizing new cell fabs in these regions. What technologies are they opting for? What equipment suppliers are being used? How much of the value-chain and eco-system is being planned or under construction to supply and use the new cells produced? 

Currently, there is over a Terawatt of relatively new cell capacity globally, all installed in the past few years. What are manufacturers and equipment/materials suppliers doing to optimize these lines, to bring down costs to allow modules to be sold profitably at the 10c/W level? How much of the equipment can be upgraded to the next mainstream silicon cell process flows? This session will look at how some of the leading cell producers – and their equipment/materials suppliers – are addressing the challenge to run factories flat-out with a cost-competitive offering. In addition, speakers will include companies supplying test and inspection equipment, vital to help troubleshoot and optimize these cell lines. 

Special session looking into the PV crystal ball at what technology might look like well into the future. How can we think about this? Will solar cell manufacturing in 2050 make current production lines look like vacuum tube technology? Will the industry have moved beyond triple-junction and the days of mining quartz be a thing of the past? Will there be any silver left in the world? Will people talk nostalgically about the ‘old days’ when all the solar cells were made in Asia? Or will TOPCon still be the mainstream offering! Have you say or just listen to what others think and then feel free to agree or not! Either way, hopefully there will be plenty fuel for thought.