Top Ten Solar

7. Sharp Electronics

There is no shortage of companies developing amorphous-silicon technologies, but the one that could push them into the mainstream market is Sharp Electronics.

As First Solar and other large manufacturers have demonstrated – size matters. Sharp already is one of the world's largest makers of crystalline silicon panels, the kind that dominates the market today. The Japanese behemoth is now making a big bet on amorphous silicon.

Sharp spent 22 billion yen and built a factory in Katsuragi, Japan last year for producing amorphous-silicon cells and assembling them into panels. The move boosted its production capacity from merely 15 megawatts per year in 2007 to 160 megawatts (see Sharp Guns for U.S. Thin-Film Market). The company announced last October that it had begun production and would ship to Europe first. It's on schedule to launch the product in the United States this summer, Ron Kenedi, vice president of Sharp's Solar Energy Solutions Group, told Greentech Media last month.

The Katsuragi factory is rolling out panels that use a second-generation amorphous silicon technology. Instead of using only a layer of amorphous silicon, the material that converts sunlight into electricity, the second-generation solar cells contain a layer of amorphous silicon and a layer of microcrystalline silicon. Sharp expects the panels to be able to convert 9 percent of sunlight that hits the cells inside into electricity. In comparison, many of startup companies in the space have only recently begun producing panels using the first-generation technology, which can produce roughly 6 percent efficiency.

Sharp already is building another factory, located in Sakai, Japan, where Sharp already has factories for making glass and LCD display panels. The Sakai solar manufacturing plant would produce triple-junction cells, starting in March 2010, the company has said. The 72 billion yen factory will have an initial production capacity of 480 megawatts, with room to expand to reach 1 gigawatt of capacity.

Triple-junction cells would contain two layers of amorphous silicon and one layer of microcrystalline silicon. This third-generation technology could produce panels with 10 percent efficiency, the company said. In comparison, First Solar's cadmium-telluride panels currently have 10.9 percent efficiency.

Sharp will face tough competition from fellow Japanese electronics giant, Sanyo, which also plans to begin producing second-generation amorphous silicon panels next year (see Sanyo Build New Factory, Enters Thin-Film Fray). Smaller competitors Sunfilm and Sontor, meanwhile, are merging to better complete (see Sunfilm, Sontor Merge to Ready Amorphous Silicon for Battle). Sunfilm bought its factory equipment from Applied Materials which, along with fellow factory equipment developer Oerlikon Solar, are making it possible for startups to enter the amorphous silicon space.