In mid-March 2024, Canada’s Silfab Solar, a manufacturer of high-efficiency modules with plans to expand into South Carolina, said it would source glass from US-based PV panel recycler Solarcycle. Solarcycle plans a $344 million solar glass factory in the US state of Georgia, supplied with recycled panel materials.
“We are excited about the potential for domestic growth in solar energy manufacturing to create jobs and R&D development in the US,” said Rob Vinje, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Solarcycle. pv magazine.
Global growth
Andries Wantenaar, of market intelligence company Rethink Technology Research, said that “solar glass demand looks robust. It is a growing market with relatively stable prices.” He noted a 66% increase in every part of China’s solar industry by 2023, and even faster growth outside China, where production doubled from 65 GW in 2022 to around 130 GW in 2023.
“If you make solar glass, you have a very large and very fast-growing market outside China to sell to,” says Wantenaar. “You won’t be stuck in the situation of Western polysilicon producers, whose customers are the wafer producers in China, who now buy exclusively from Chinese polysilicon manufacturers at prices well below Western marginal production costs.”
Material prices for glass are relatively stable. “The price of solar energy glass has been persistent for at least ten years because it is a fully thought-out product,” says Wantenaar. The caveat is that glass is an energy-intensive product, which is a strong cost driver, and one of the reasons why China dominates manufacturing. Wantenaar estimates that China has “about 90%” of the solar glass market, more than its 80% share of PV modules.
Two sides
Wantenaar believes that glass will represent a larger portion of module costs in the future as other elements become more cost-efficient and the trend of two-sided modules, which typically use glass on both sides instead of a glass front combined with a polymer back sheet, continues to gain momentum is becoming.
“Bifacial recently surpassed 50% market share, looking at Chinese manufacturing output, and will continue to grow, perhaps reaching 75% by 2030,” the analyst said.
Bifacial glass modules typically use two 2mm, sometimes 1.6mm, panes of glass, as opposed to conventional panels using 3.2mm glass. Using thinner glass may require different heat strengthening processes, which can affect quality.
The trend toward glass-to-glass is something researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are looking at regarding module sustainability.
“The really thin glass is optimized for shipping and logistics, not necessarily for sustainability performance in the field,” says Teresa Barnes, who manages the PV Reliability and System Performance Group at NREL and heads the DOE-funded Sustainable Module Materials. (Duramat) research consortium.
“Historically, silicon PV modules were made with rolled and textured cover glass, while thin film used antimony-free float glass with a thickness of 2mm or 3mm,” Barnes said. “Thinner is possible, but it is more difficult because of the heat-tempering process.”
Glass material made for the North American market may have different mechanical requirements than for other regions.
“Extreme weather, such as hail, could mean U.S. modules need thicker tempered glass,” says Barnes.
Similar signals are also coming from Europe.
“The trend here is to find niches,” said Martin Zugg, director of German glass manufacturer Interfloat, owned by India’s Borosil. “It is difficult to find a niche, but we see manufacturers increasingly developing new niche markets, including hail-resistant panels that require thicker glass, roof-integrated modules and building-integrated PV applications.”
Interfloat produces enough textured solar glass with a low iron content and high transmission for 2 GW of modules per year. It makes glass with thicknesses ranging from 2mm to 6mm, in conventional as well as custom and special sizes.
The use of thicker glass could provide market opportunities for local glass manufacturers and reduce transportation costs.
“Glass is an expensive material to ship,” says NREL’s Barnes. “Logistics costs, shipping and storage are all paid by the manufacturer of the PV modules.”
First solar effect
US-based thin-film PV giant First Solar is expanding its capacity by 13 GW of operational production from September 2023, and plans for 25 GW of global annual nameplate capacity by 2026, including 14 GW in the United States.
That expansion path is spurring investments in the glass industry to supply the float glass it needs for its thin-film modules. In the United States, manufacturers NSG Group and Vitro Architectural Glass have announced contracts and plans for dedicated lines for First Solar.
In India, where First Solar recently inaugurated its 3.3 GW Series 7 module factory, French materials company Saint Gobain is reportedly bringing production online at a factory in Tamil Nadu state to supply the US manufacturer.
In November 2023, NSG said it would add transparent conductive oxide (TCO)-coated glass capacity in Ohio to supply First Solar, and plans the move in early 2025. NSG has been producing TCO-coated glass for thin-film PV for more than 25 years . .
“Every year the solar market is getting bigger and bigger; more capital, more resources,” said Stephen Weidner, head of NSG’s North American architectural glass and solar products groups. “We see this on a global basis.”
Glass for solar energy is becoming increasingly important. “It has gone from virtually nothing a decade ago to 10% to 15% of the total supply of the flat glass market in North America,” Weidner said. “Our goal is to grow with the market. That means by the end [2024] we will have three float lines in North America for the solar segment, another two lines in Vietnam, and also one in Malaysia, which we previously converted into architectural glass TCO.”
Vitro Architectural Glass is also adding U.S. capacity to supply First Solar. In October 2023, it announced an expansion of its contract with First Solar and a plan to invest in a factory in Pennsylvania, as well as retrofitting existing PV glass facilities. The company said in a statement that it expected “significant growth” in the solar glass sector due to the “nearshoring” effect in the United States.
IRA impact
In addition to impacting First Solar and its growing glass supply chain, policies such as the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are also driving investment in crystalline silicon production, prompting Canadian Premium Sand (CPS), a newcomer from Canada, to introduce a solar panel to announce. glass project. CPS plans to build a factory in Selkirk, Manitoba, to produce glass module covers from 1.8 mm to 4 mm in sufficient volume for 6 GW of solar panels per year.
“We estimate that demand in the North America region for solar pattern glass will reach nearly 100 GW by 2030, driven by the realignment of the supply chain for solar panel manufacturing in the US,” said Anshul Vishal, head of business development at CPS.
The company announced offtake agreements with Swiss module manufacturer Meyer Burger, Canada-based Heliene and Qcells, owned by South Korea’s Hanwha, among others. According to Vishal, further offtake discussions with other potential patterned solar glass customers are underway, with plans to achieve 100% contracted status before construction.
CPS’s integrated glass project requires an investment of CAD 880 million ($639 million) to set up the plant and develop a silica sand site. The plan includes multiple lines of patterned tempered solar glass, including anti-reflective and anti-foul coating lines, which will be online in 2026.
“It is a project that has been approved by both provincial and federal government agencies and the environmental clearances are in place,” Vishal said. “We just had the sand material tested in Europe, which confirmed that we can use simple, low-cost and environmentally responsible processes to refine it to patterned solar glass specifications.”
CPS will be able to tap into Manitoba’s energy mix for low carbon emissions2-emissions of hydropower and wind energy. According to Vishal, being located in the North American Free Trade Agreement zone in a location that is three to four days by land from customers – which supports easier shipping and less potential disruption – also has location-related benefits.
A consortium has been contracted to build the CPS plant. It includes Henry F. Teichmann, an international glass factory contractor based in the United States; France-based industrial engineering firm Fives Group; Italian glass equipment supplier Bottero; and two Canadian companies, Elrus Aggregate Systems, a supplier of mineral processing equipment; and PCL Constructors, a civil engineering company.
Recycled glass
Like CPS, the plant planned for the two-year-old Solarcycle has an annual capacity with the module equivalent of 5 GW to 6 GW of generation capacity – but using recycled glass. By using recycled materials recovered from crystalline silicon panels at the end of their life, the recovered glass has the correct chemical composition. It’s already a low-iron material, as Solarcycle’s Vinje sees it, and that will reduce energy demand and embodied carbon.
“It is the first low iron rolled glass plant to be built in the US market,” the COO said. “We are currently receiving offers from international suppliers of glass processing equipment, while the engineering, construction and multiple subsystem contracts are being negotiated with US-based suppliers.”
The factory has an 800-meter-long patterned glass production line with both hot and cold processing segments. It includes a specially designed cross-fired regenerative furnace structure that reuses exhaust gases to reduce fuel consumption; hot-rolled processing equipment; and glass cutting, grinding, tempering and other cold end process steps required to make glass for double and single glazing modules.
Solarcycle is not the only glass supplier that wants to benefit from the use of recycled material. Canada’s CPS also said it plans to use recycled glass cullet from external sources in its products, while companies including Japan’s AGC and Saint Gobain have also announced projects.
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