U.S. Photovoltaic Exports Jump

L ast year, U.S. shipments of photo­voltaic modules and cells shot up by 52%, according to a survey con­

ducted by the Energy Information Ad­ministration (EIA), an independent arm of the Department of Energy.

Nearly all of the increase in ship­ments was driven by ex­ports, the report notes, which make up 72% of total U.S. photovolatics ship­ments. Exports to Europe and Asia almost doubled, the survey found. About 36% of U.S. exports in 1999 went to Germany, followed by Japan with 27%. These countries have strong government pro­grams to encourage photo­voltaic development and use.

'The real story here is that in both Germany and Japan there are major, major govern­ment programs to integrate photovoltaics into construction projects," says Fred Mayes, chief of EIAs renewable ener­gy information team.

Those government pro­grams, he says, provide financial incen­tives to install photovoltaics in buildings as well as require utilities to purchase electricity generated by renewable en­ergy sources at "generous" rates, which are several times higher than the price of electricity produced by other energy sources.

The U.S. has an incentive program too, Mayes notes: DOE's "Million Solar

Exports lead way in U.S.-made photovoltaic shipments Thousands of kW 80

Roofs" effort. But the focus is primarily on federal buildings, and despite its name, DOE's program appears to have had little impact on the marketplace.

Mayes adds that the term "U.S. ship­ments" might be a little misleading since most, if not all, of the top five pho-

Solar remains a small part of the U.S. energy mix

Wind <0.5% Solar 1% Geothermal 5%

Biomass 43%

Hydroelectric 50%

1998 energy use = 94.2 quadrillion Btu

7.0 quadrillion Btu from renewable sources

Note: Data are for 1998. Percentages do not sum to 100% because of rounding. Source: Energy Information Administration

Source: Energy Information Administration

tovoltaic manufacturers in the U.S., which account for most shipments, are at least in part owned by non-U.S. com­panies. He estimates that companies op­erating in the U.S. supply about 35% of the world market, followed by compa­nies in Japan and Germany.

'What is happening," he says, "is the U.S. has the lead technologically, and, believe it or not, compared to places like

Germany, we have lower — — • — production costs. We in­

creasingly find companies with Japanese and Ger­man connections locating plants in the U.S. and ex­porting photovoltaics back to their countries or to the rest of the world."

A more complete analy­sis of the U.S. and interna­tional solar market, Mayes says, will be presented in an EIA report to be re­leased in two months.

In all, U.S. photovolta­ics shipments in 1999 were worth $224 million—one year ago these shipments totaled $185 million. The EIA report also shows that

average photovoltaic cell prices fell one-third during 1999; consequently, the val­ue of shipments went up 21%, while the quantity increased twice that much.

Most of the photovoltaic production growth has been in the manufacture of cells, the report shows. Cell production has tripled since 1997, while the manufac­ture of complete modules has gone up by one-third. This indicates that the assem­

bly process appears to be in-creasingly taking place in countries outside the U.S., Mayes adds.

More than half the appli­cations are industrial or com­mercial, according to the re­port, and photovoltaic use by this sector of the economy is growing quickly. Residential installations make up about one-quarter of the total.

Off-grid applications of photovoltaics in remote areas, particularly in developing countries, have been thought to be solar energy's future, but the EIA survey shows that is not the case today. All of Af­rica in 1999 purchased only 4.8% of U.S. exports, with South Africa accounting for

nearly three-fourths of that. South American countries together imported just 6.5%, with Brazil taking more than half.

Instead, one-third of the applications were directly integrated with an exist­ing power grid, and the rest were divid­ed among remote installations (around 8%) and applications to fill communica­tion, transportation, and other needs.

The EIA survey also notes that the in­dustry employs few people—only about 2,000 full-time workers made their liv­ing producing photovoltaics.

The report also looked at solar ther­mal collectors, which are used to heat fluids. Their shipments from 1998 to 1999 went up 11%, as measured by square footage. The value of these ship­ments decreased from $28 million to $26 million, however, because of a 17% drop in price.

More than 90% of collector produc­tion output remained in the U.S., mostly heating water for swimming pools in Florida, California, and Arizona.

A synopsis of the EIA data is avail­able on the Internet at http://www.eia. doe.gov/cneaf/solar . renewables/ page/solar/solarphoto_tab.html.

Jeffjohnson

OCTOBER 9,2000 C&EN 4 5

Nuclear electric

/ 8% ,

Renewable - energy

8%

Petroleum 39%

Natural gas 23% Coal

23%

Total -

Exports]

Domestic sales