PV manufacturing scaling to giga-watt capacity: Lessons learned from the semiconductor and flat panel display industries

In today´s extremely competitive solar photovoltaic (PV) market, companies must develop and optimize manufacturing operations to gain market share, take advantage of economies of scale, and meet cost/watt business objectives: However, most PV manufacturers have limited resources and their expertise is often focused on technology, finance, and operations - not on factory optimization. Details of planning a state-of-the-art PV manufacturing facility present a daunting logistical challenge, and missteps cost money, cause schedule slippage, and adversely affect facility output and yield, ultimately impacting a company´s bottom line. These challenges are magnified significantly as manufacturers contemplate developing manufacturing facilities at the very large (giga-watt) scale. In this paper, we use our extensive facility planning and design experience in two mature industries similar to solar PV manufacturing - semiconductor and flat panel (FPD) display manufacturing - to provide key “lessons learned” for planning very large PV manufacturing facilities. Additionally, we introduce a “checklist” approach to provide facility owners with tools to evaluate specific expansion plans and to help them make prudent decisions about factory scale-ups.