LDK Solar Reaches 1GW Wafer Production Capacity (China)

[jpak]

http://www.solarbuzz.com/News/NewsASMA184.htm

LDK Solar held a ceremony this week-end celebrated its wafer plant reaching the milestone of 1.0 GW annualized capacity. This event was hosted by Mr. Xiaofeng Peng, Founder, Chairman and CEO in Xinyu, China.

"I would like to congratulate our team on their remarkable speed in expanding wafer production capacity and their success in reaching the 1.0 GW milestone ahead of schedule," commented Chairman Peng. "We are pleased to achieve one of the fastest capacity ramps within the solar industry as we expand our production capabilities to meet the continued strong demand from our growing global customer base."

"We are proud to reach this significant milestone and remain confident in our ability to expand to 1.2 GW wafer capacity by the end of 2008. This achievement demonstrates our continued commitment to becoming the largest and lowest cost wafer producer in the solar industry," concluded Mr. Peng.

LDK Solar's 1.0 GW production capacity is in line with the company's publicly announced plans to reach a target annualized wafer production capacity of up to 1.2 GW by the end of 2008, 2.2 GW by the end of 2009 and 3.2 GW by the end of 2010.

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[kristopher]

1. This is the way the transition is going to get done. nt

[Nederland]

2. Question

So at this rate, how long will it be before Captain Exajoules can no longer make his famous claim?

[ElectricGrid]

3. Not long... check this out

Despatch sold the machinery to make 5GW worth of capacity per year just last year alone, up from 2GW their previous exsistance. For those mathmatically challenged that is 5000 MW.


"This is a tremendous achievement for Despatch," says Steve Oman, Director of International Sales and Corporate Business Development. "A year ago we were celebrating our success in supplying 2GW of production capacity. The incredible rate at which we are growing is evidence of our critical role in the industry as a valued process technology expert and innovative equipment provider."

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/8/prweb1247214.htm

[kristopher]

4. It is like starting with a penny and doubling your wages every day... nt

[Nederland]

5. Actually it may be longer than you think

I just did the math--someone check it please.

A megawatt hour is 3,600,000,000 joules.

An exajoule is 10^18 joules or 277777777 MWH.

So 5GW of panels would have to operate for 55555 hours or 6.3 years to produce an exajoule of energy.

Plus you need to add in the fact that solar panels don't actually produce that much energy 24 hours a day...

[DCKit]

6. With even a 10% increase in capacity every year for 6.3 years, it'll catch up.

"Compound interest" isn't quite as attractive as "exponential growth" but works too.

Additional increases in conservation and efficiency won't hurt either. We could all live comfortably using far less energy than we do now.

[diane in sf]

7. Thanks DCkit, we could probably all live quite comfortable on about 10% of

the energy we are currently squandering.

[DCKit]

9. Compounding:

According to:

http://www.moneychimp.com/calculator/compound_interest_calculator.htm

If we start with 100 and add 10%/year for six years, we'd end up with 177.16 at the end of year 6, over twice as much (214.36) in year 8 and 299.24 by the "deadline" of 2020. As far as I know, the only thing limiting growth in the solar industry is the short supply of (cheap) purified Silicon (not to be confused with silicone, though I hear that's in short supply as well). I am unaware of any looming steel shortage, so the production of wind turbines, and their contribution as a percentage of our energy use, should continue to outstrip solar by a huge margin.

And I believe I said we are wasteful. Energy is an interest of mine (and has been for over 30 years), and I'm pretty sure we could shave 20% of our current usage with little effort or expense in less than two years. Your own state has made massive inroads in conservation and derailed any excuse for the construction of many new power plants.

Further, the state of CA and PG&E currently have the best and most generous incentives for solar in the nation. Without rate increases, the return on investment for a residential solar power system with a 20-25 year warranty is less then ten years. To my way of thinking, that's ten-fifteen years of "free" electricity and zero threat of (further) financial hardship at the hands of your fiendly power company. Unfortunately you've got to have all that cash up-front.

[kristopher]

8. I think your math is wrong.

2008: original plant produces 5 plants each capable of producing 1GW of panels each year.
2009: first 5 plant produce 5Gw of panels, 5 new plants come online.
2010: first 10 plants produce 10GW of panels, 5 more new plants come online. Panels from first 5 plants produce electricity for full year.
2011: first 15 plants produce 15GW of panels, 5 new plants come online....

So by the end of 2018 we would have 50 plants, each producing 1GW worth of panels each year. Using a conservative 14% capacity factor, that is 7GW of full time production equivalent. That means that the panels produced in JUST 2018 will ACTUALLY produce 61,320,000,000,000 watt hours of electricity.
Add to that
the 45GW of panels produced in 2017,
the 40GW of panels produced in 2016,
the 35GW of panels produced in 2015,
the 30GW of panels produced in 2014,
the 25GW of panels produced in 2013,
the 20GW of panels produced in 2012,
the 15GW of panels produced in 2011,
the 10GW of panels produced in 2010,
the 5GW of panels produced in 2009

And we have a cumulative installed nameplate capacity of 275GW that actually produced in 2018 (at a c.f. of 14%) a total of 337,260,000 MWh of electricity or about 1.2141359999999999 EJ. (feel free to check my math)

And what happens if we concentrate on building several of the plants producing the machines to build panels?


The PRIMARY energy resources consumed in the US is about 100 exajoules per year (2000), so the actual energy consumed by user is about 35EJ.

Since solar and wind don't suffer the thermal wastes those numbers represent, with storage, we need only produce the lower number, not the higher. And if we single out coal and petroleum as the commodities to replace, we are even lower. Add in improvements in efficiency and conservation and in ten years that one factory has laid the groundwork for meeting about 5% of out total power needs.

[Nederland]

10. Different Assumptions

You are assuming that 5 new plants would come online every year. Given that assumption your math is accurate, but I'm not really sure that is a fair assumption. We will see. There is no doubt that solar has reached a tipping point to where it will become more popular, I'm pretty sure your predicted optimistic construction rate will not materialize.

[kristopher]

11. Not being snarky but the company we are discussing

Not being snarky but the company we are discussing makes plants to make panels, not the panels themselves. Your analysis built was around the totally erroneous assumption that they only produced panels.

You wrote:
"An exajoule is 10^18 joules or 277777777 MWH.
So 5GW of panels would have to operate for 55555 hours or 6.3 years to produce an exajoule of energy.
Plus you need to add in the fact that solar panels don't actually produce that much energy 24 hours a day..."


Given the increasing demand for energy and the diminishing worldwide supply of petroleum and coal, it is inevitable that demand will remain constant or, much more probably, dramatically increase. The real question becomes, how many of these "base plants" (my term) will spring up? We need to provide power for 6 billion people and solar/wind fits the needs of the vast majority of these people even better than it fits our needs. In part, this is because they don't already have well established centrally powered grid systems.

"Minneapolis, Minn. (PRWEB) August 27, 2008 -- Despatch Industries, the leading process technology provider for the solar industry, proudly announces that the company has sold over 7GW of photovoltaic production capacity worldwide. Despatch partners with solar industry leaders to provide the process technology expertise for integrated solutions that make solar power a viable and affordable energy option.

"This is a tremendous achievement for Despatch," says Steve Oman, Director of International Sales and Corporate Business Development. "A year ago we were celebrating our success in supplying 2GW of production capacity. The incredible rate at which we are growing is evidence of our critical role in the industry as a valued process technology expert and innovative equipment provider.""

[Nederland]

12. Response

Didn't catch that. So the actual production could actually be quite a bit lower, eh? We will see.