Agenda

The opening presentation at PV CellTech USA 2024 from conference Chair, Dr. Finlay Colville, will provide a fascinating look at how PV technology in manufacturing has evolved over the past 50 years, covering the major developments that have made 25% efficiency solar cells a mainstream occurance in a 700-GW-plus annual PV production environment. Using this as the benchmark for PV manufacturing today, Finlay will then look into his crystal ball to predict how PV cell manufacturing may evolve over the next five years, out to 2030. This will include the big-question in PV today: what-next-after-TOPCon?

Understand just what the U.S. is up against when it comes to backward integrating the new module fabs today to cell and then wafer manufacturing. This unmissable opening talk will truly set the scene for an action-packed two days of PV CellTech USA 2024 which, as a whole, will frame the challenges and opportunities for the U.S. PV segment, against the backdrop of the huge performance and cost achievements undertaken in China over the past 20 years.

The opening session will provide a comprehensive update on the domestic drivers in place today to help stimulate new investments into U.S. PV manufacturing, including production-based incentives, end-market demand and corporate traceability buying trends. Hear from policymakers, leading decision-makers influencing domestic manufacturing, and other key stakeholders.

As announcements of new PV manufacturing capacity in the U.S. become a reality in 2024 and beyond, a diverse range of stakeholders – across silicon and thin-film supply chains – is innovating to create the necessary materials and equipment that will allow a domestic eco-system to be established.  This session focuses on some of the companies and organizations that are driving this onshoring of key components and equipment for the U.S. sector, and the value-added they are creating across the value-chain.

While new domestic PV manufacturing in the U.S. is being driven by a combination of domestic manufacturing and deployment incentives, the rate at which new capacity is being installed through the value-chain (from modules back to wafers) is being controlled also by the flow of wafers, cells and modules into the U.S. that are not subject to excessive import duties. At the heart of each of these issues is a legal framework of policies introduced – or under consideration – by U.S. government departments. This session will offer an invaluable guide to understanding what this landscape looks like today, what the implications are for domestic wafer and cell capacity to be fast-tracked in 2025/2026, and how policy may evolve in coming years to adapt to a changing domestic supply eco-system.

The initial phase of new PV manufacturing capacity in the U.S. has mostly involved First Solar adding new thin-film fabs and silicon-based manufacturers setting up module lines using cells using Chinese developed technologies, produced in Southeast Asia. For the U.S. to become a technology-leader by 2030, silicon-based technology differentiation is needed alongside a new solar fab-operations ‘mentality’ that has not existed in the U.S. in the past. This session will look at some of the technologies that could offer U.S. differentiation going forward, consider the eco-system in place today in the U.S. to foster technology-transfer and pilot-line process knowledge from lab-to-fab, and discuss how new PV fabs fit can benefit from the growing trend for ‘onshoring’ key technologies in the U.S. in general.

All signs today are that back-contact technologies will replace TOPCon cell production, as the industry makes its final push to the ultimate single-junction silicon cell architecture. But how ready is the U.S. eco-system to make this change: where does the IP reside, which R&D labs globally can facilitate the necessary technology-transfer, is there a non-Chinese equipment supply-chain? Should the new cell lines of 2025 in the U.S. be back-contact ‘ready’ and if so, what does a hybrid TOPCon/back-contact production line look like? This session addresses these issues head-on, looking also upstream to ingot pulling and polysilicon purity levels that would be required to enable cell efficiencies in the high twenties.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has been instrumental in creating a host of new fabs in the U.S. during 2024, with many more planned to go into mass production in 2025. This session will hear from some of the first movers in this space, understanding the scale of new capacity ramped this year and planned for 2025, the technologies selected, and cell and module availability for utility-scale projects in coming years.

Join us for an informal drinks reception at the end of Day 1