Pure silicon issue

[Kareem Shihab]

I want to get to the bottom of this pure silicon supply issue. I hear that silicon is one of the most abundant substances on earth (one fourth of the earths crust), then I hear that the reason that PV price is kept high is because of the lack of supply of this silicon, or "pure silicon"
what is it about the process of refining the silicon that is keeping the supply low and the prices high? -K

[Rob Beckers]

Making silicon have the purity required for semiconductors is hard. It has to be very, very pure. Keep in mind that to go from pure (undoped) silicon to the semi-conductor material that's used for solar cells and other devices, selective 'impurities' are added with a concentration in the order of 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 100,000 atoms (to make N- or P-type semiconductors). So for this to work the pure silicon must have less foreign atoms than that to begin with.

For regular semiconductors such as integrated circuits the silicon will also have to be mono-crystalline. Not sure if this is required for photovoltaic cells, probably not since there obviously are poly-crystalline solar cells. Anyway, making single-crystal silicon is not an easy process either.

That was only part of the reason for the shortages though. The other part was demand in Europe (Germany in particular) and Asia, from what I heard. Because of incentives in several countries there was a sudden run on photovoltaics, causing shortage because of the limitations in production capacity. Only so many modules could be manufactured in a given amount of time.

-Rob-

[Mark Parsons]

An interesting news release and postings concerning the silicon shortage link -
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=46615

We need thin film technology in mass production now.

Go, Go, Go, Nanosolar, Powerfilm, Global Solar, et al.

I've been holding off on my main solar panel purchase under hopes that by this time next year we see considerable downward price pressure on PV.

Mark