Japan Players Bet Big on Emerging Thin-film Solar

[JohnWxy]

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=53328

by Dr. Paula Doe, Contributing Editor, Solid-State Technology

While startups attract the clean tech venture capital millions in the U.S. for new kinds of thin-film solar technologies, some big established players in Japan are also putting significant money into major new efforts to move these emerging technologies into volume production in the next few years.


Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. is starting a big "Project PV," focusing on small-molecule organics solution coated on flexible substrates. Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. is putting US $70M into microcrystalline thin-film technology at its new Advanced Photovoltaics Development Center. The directors of both projects recently briefed SST partner Nikkei Microdevices on the details.

Mitsubishi Chemical already sells some US $18M/year worth of materials to the solar industry, and figures this will grow to a US $90M business by 2010. But it sees a bigger opportunity in putting this materials expertise to work in making the cells itself — targeting thin, light, flexible solar cells for portable applications that can be made cheaply with a roll-to-roll process. Right now there's little or no competition in this field from established product, and where required lifetimes are only in the more attainable 10-year range.

"Solar cells are electronics with chemistry, so they're a natural market for a chemical company like us to target aggressively," said Mitsubishi Chemical PV Project director Tokitaro Hoshijima.

[phantom power]

1. At a guess...

Mitsubishi Chemical "betting" $70M is something like me purchasing a $5 lottery ticket. That isn't intended as a comment on the value of developing thin-film solar, but I question using the phrase "betting big."

If I took out a business loan for $70M, that would be betting big. The relative scale thing, etc.

[JohnWxy]

2. Yeah, Mitzubishi is huge. Here is a link to their business plan, on pg 6 is there investment

distribution for development of new products. Unfortunately it's in Billions of Yen. 1 Japanese yen = 0.009109 U.S. dollars.

http://www.m-kagaku.co.jp/english/newsreleases/2008/20080513-1.pdf


Total R&D budget = 425 Billion Yen or $3,871,325,000. So $70 Million would be about 2% of the total R&D budget.

I don't know what their average commitment to one (potential) product line is.

[phantom power]

3. It's certainly larger than some little IR&D...

Heh. 2% of their R&D budget is about 7 times the valuation of my entire company.

[JohnWxy]

4. Well, no guts, no glory. Hat's off to you!

[FatDave]

5. So how many days in Iraq does $70million get us?

Also: from what I've heard, this thin film solar stuff is great. Cheaper, far more durable, produces more power. Better than traditional solar cells in every way.

[autorank]

6. And it fits very nicely with this

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

[FatDave]

7. Sweet! I'd missed that development.

Thanks for pointing it out.