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 While feed-in tariffs (FITs) or tax benefits are top-down, government-led, approaches which have resulted in significant progress in Solar markets of certain countries, there has also been a parallel development. At the same time there has been a surge in ‘bottom-up’ approaches to cost reduction by PV manufacturers and suppliers. In particular this has meant a focus on reducing of material and broader manufacturing costs. The simple fact is that current technologies simply cannot deliver the required cost efficiencies and new technologies based on cheaper and different materials are on the critical path. Just to make life tricky, resources of currently used materials (especially metals and dopants) are getting scarce, are highly toxic (posing their own problems) and are very expensive. As an example of this focus there is now a lot of attention on thin film technologies, as opposed to the traditional semiconductor basis for PV technology. The interest is largely due to the low cost nature of thin film - lower material costs, lower manufacturing costs and lower system costs. However, for any alternatives to stand a chance development has to be both streamlined and accelerated, starting today. This means that there still remains huge potential for other reductions in the cost of PV technology. At Process Relations we have identified three areas where there are significant gains to be made: new, more cost effective material systems need to be developed; new technologies that help save materials, or enable materials to be used more efficiently, are required; and lastly, better predictions of incurred manufacturing and material costs as well as sustainability are also needed. With XperiDesk you can address these challenges successfully. Click on any of the items below to get an in detail view, on how XperiDesk can help you in your development efforts today:
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