American manufacturing of thin-film cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar panels has been the sole domain of First Solar for the last decade — but now, an Ohio-based competitor has joined the fray.
Enter Toledo Solar. Formed via a $30 million initiative led by The Atlas Venture Group, Toledo solar has set up it’s flagship manufacturing facility in the old Willard & Kelsey Solar Group building in Perrysburg, Ohio. Willard & Kelsey was another CdTe aspirant that fell, in part, due to First Solar’s dominance.
The 300,000 square foot facility features an annual manufacturing capacity of 100 MW and employs 25 people, with plans for the workforce to reach 70 by year’s end. The company also shares that, due to demand projections, Toledo Solar will reach an annual manufacturing output of 850 MW by 2026.
Carving a niche
And while the company posts a gaudy claim that it already has “over $800 million in purchase orders for solar panels, power converters and energy storage systems,” those orders are likely not going to become a wedge in First Solar’s market.
Unlike First Solar, Toledo Solar will be operating not in the utility-scale solar space, but rather in the residential and commercial markets.
“We recognize the void in the non-utility solar markets that have been underserved by silicon solar panels. ‘Cad-Tel’ is clearly a better option. We are excited to lead this investment in Toledo and continue to push ‘Cad-Tel’ solar technology forward,” said Aaron Bates, chairman of The Atlas Venture Group.
Smaller-scale solar has long been the bane of CdTe modules. Typically, CdTe panels have less power and lower efficiency without the benefit of significantly lower cost, when compared to crystalline-silicon. Even though the technology offers lower degradation rates and higher resistances to shading, having to cover a larger area and spend more to achieve comparable generation has always been a considerable hurdle.
“Our group spent about 18 months on due diligence before we actually decided to move forward and make this investment,” shared Bates. “We approached this full-boat. We brought in every expert we could to investigate before we decided to do this… This wasn’t like a passion project, or that one of us invented cad-tel in our garage. We went about this with an institutional and financial perspective.”
A better option?
That lofty claim that “‘Cad-Tel’ is clearly a better option,” is one that will be tested immediately. Toldeo Solar shares that the company’s panels offer 16.5% efficiency, coming in at a size of 60 x 120 cm. The panels, dubbed ‘Tier 1,’ are assumed to produce 115 W. This size, efficiency and power rating puts the panels in-line with First Solar’s series 4.
It is not just the company that has high hopes for the modules, either.
“Toledo Solar has excellent technology,” said Prof. Michael Heben, Director of the University of Toledo’s Wright Center for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization. “First Solar is the domestic leader in utility-scale solar, and Toledo Solar can fill that same role for non-utility installations.”
Toledo University, along with the Ohio Federal Research Network were chosen to evaluate the equipment and technology at the Perrysburg, Ohio location.
As for the technology match-up between Toledo and First, thin-film expert Markus Beck told pv magazine, “The degree of differentiation is likely very small and to a large degree necessitated by the intellectual property space First Solar has made off-limits to competitors.” He said that the back contact could have some level of differentiation, as could the module architecture, albeit to a lesser extent. Additionally, a fair bit of module aspects are in the public domain.
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Zombie or Phoenix? (Holy) Toledo Solar emerges from, or at least HQs in, the facility remains of notorious thin-film PV roadkill company, Willard Kelsey Solar.
It’ll be interesting and since it is said to be better in cloudy, etc conditions I’d be willing to switch if the price is competitive which next yr is $.20/wt once tariffs, Trump goes away.
Most of Florida utilities use thin film and tracking.
I think you’ll find the product too little too late. It looks like a 4 foot by 2 foot panel of 115 watts. Look at what’s coming from solar PV manufacturers and typical 18 square foot panels are putting out on average 330 to 360 watts. If you’ve got 400 square feet of roof space to put solar PV on, then you’ll have 50 CdTe panels and about, 5750 watts peak output. With typical mono sided crystalline solar PV panels at around 18 square feet of each panel, then you could get from 7260 watts peak, to 7920 watts peak.
There seems to be another looming regulatory problem coming. NEC 2020 has already incorporated a call for RSD (rapid shut down) per solar PV panel. When this kicks in, it would cost less to install RSD under 22 panels than to install RSD under 50 panels.
For years, the only suppliers for residential CdTe were the Chinese. Even though retail CdTe panels are less efficient than Si, the total system cost isn’t much different between the two, the LCoE is lower for CdTe, and the panels look better, which carries a lot of “cost” in suburbia. The top solar installers have always had a sizeable demand for CdTe, but no where to buy the panels.
CdTe panels will soon be more efficient than Si with 50+ year longevity, efficiency and longevity that Si will never attain. Massive Chinese subsidization is the only thing holding Si at such a low price: they sell the Si for less than the raw energy (never mind labor) required to make it.
First Solar has been a wet blanket on CdTe. Their relationship with the Department of Energy is strange; First Solar and Department of Energy claim the development of the same technologies, but First Solar rarely acknowledges DoE, while DoE identifies First Solar as the corporate licensee of the technologies. Meanwhile, First Solar aggressively protects technologies that our Federal debt paid for, preventing them from entering the residential marketplace.
First Solar chose to go grid-only because residential causes engineering problems for utilities and operating customer support and warranty departments is a pain, but “smart” inverters are changing the regulatory environment and sales and support departments are factored into the higher cost of residential, so First Solar could choose to enter the residential market in the blink of an eye.
Go Toledo! Carve your niche before First Solar moves to squish you!
I was fascinated to discover high grade quartz from US needed to be shipped to China, made into solar panels, and then back to US while CT can be made here. Even if it has a little less energy than quartz, if you are connected to the grid with credit for the surplus energy you produce, you also have the grid for periods of higher energy need. Personally I own 4 roofs, and would not install solar unless I could sell it to my utility, since my normal energy use is far lower than my roof area. Many solar users are already practicing conservative energy use. In Washington, DC a battle was fought and won to have the local electric utility use DC produced solar first befor going to other states for solar electricity.