How sunlight became a commodity in Germany
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How sunlight became a commodity in Germany
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Philip Ball
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f you had to guess which country produces the most electrical power from photovoltaics (PV), you would probably draw candidates from sunny places such as the Middle East, the Mediterranean, or the United States. Germany, with its gray northern European skies, seems an unlikely contender. But there it is: between one-third and one-half of the PV power in the world flows in Germany, amounting to a little more than six gigawatts. This is the result of deliberate policies to encourage the uptake of solar energy, ranging from support for fundamental research to schemes that guarantee competitive pricing for electricity from renewable sources. According to Anton Milner, former CEO of the PV manufacturer Q-Cells, the German government has provided tens of billions of euros to stimulate the spread of PV, an initiative that he calls an “unmitigated success.” The proportion of Germany’s energy generated by PV might sound small— about 1–2%—but it represents a significant fraction of the total contribution (14%) from renewables, and the market is growing exponentially. This, in turn, drives costs down, and the solar-power industry also has created around 50,000 jobs in Germany and brought revenues of €5.6 billion ($6.9 bn) in 2009. Famously committed to green issues, Germany has set an ambitious CO2 emission-reduction MRS BULLETIN
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VOLUME 35 • SEPTEMBER 2010
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target of 40% by 2020, relative to the demic research on fundamental aspects of 1990 level, and PV will be a major playsemiconductor optical behavior remains er in that strategy. According to Karsten remote from applications, improvements Körnig, managing director of the German in the performance and processing of the Solar Industry Association (BSW-Solar), two main commercial technologies— it is hoped that 5–10% of German energy silicon wafer and thin-film cells—have will be solar by 2020. been crucial. Perhaps the biggest stimulus for PV “There were no thin-film devices when was the German government’s RenewI started in this business,” said Milner. able Energy Sources Act, framed in 2000 “Now cadmium telluride thin films are and significantly amended in 2004 and the second largest PV material system 2008. Anyone in Germany now has the out there.” right to produce electricity through PV Thin-film devices are made by deposand feed it into the grid, forcing an open iting a semiconductor, typically CdTe, market. But the most significant aspect of onto a substrate, a technique pioneered by the Act was the provision of a so-called the U.S. company First Solar, now globfeed-in tariff for renewable energy. This ally the largest manufacturer of thin-film allows producers to sell their electricity cells. The efficiencies of these devices are to utilities companies at a guaranteed typically lower than those of crystalline price over a 20-year period, which is consilicon (around 9% in commercial modsiderably greater than the normal “grid” ules), but the processing and production rate. The tariff costs are low
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