The road to commercialization in the PV industry: a case study of EFG technology

The successful commercialization of the PV industry will be a direct function of the effective management of the total cost of its delivered products. A central indicator of this success is a firm´s capability to attain and preserve a productivity advantage over its competitors in the market of choice. The interdependency of technical know-how and success in the business climate is measurable along multiple dimensions. Arguably among these indicators are issues related to technical intensity, the willingness and ability to deploy significant technological changes, and certainly sustainable market participation. Several dozen new silicon wafer production technologies have been introduced and taken to various levels of maturity over the past two decades. Here, the authors trace the development of edge-defined film-fed growth (EFG) technology from a fledgling R&D phase to commercialization in this paper within the context of a conventional experience curve for EFG technology