Local solar cell manufacturers are relying on entrepreneurial spirit, R&D capacity and technical capability to help solve some of the world’s most pressing issues.
As ever-growing demand pushes the prices of fossil fuels higher and higher, companies and entrepreneurs in Taiwan’s solar energy “kitchen” are stepping up their efforts to provide a competitive, non-polluting alternative. Commercialization of solar power has taken off in earnest on the island in an effort that could shape the future of the industry--and perhaps the fate of the planet itself.
Taiwan’s solar power industry generated an output value of NT$53.5 billion (US$1.74 billion) in 2007, with the figure expected to climb to NT$400 billion (US$13.1 billion) by 2015. While the island’s enterprises have recently helped in the effort to develop and commercialize solar technology, the quest to generate electricity from sunlight has a long history. French physicist Alexandre-Edmond Bequerel first described the basic physical process for converting sunlight into electricity in 1839 after experimenting with an electrolytic cell made up of two metal electrodes. Nineteen years old at the time, the physicist had discovered that certain materials would produce small amounts of electric current when exposed to light. More than 80 years after Bequerel’s breakthrough, Albert Einstein received a Nobel Prize in 1921 for his theories explaining the photoelectric effect. US semiconductor researcher Russell Ohl patented the modern solar cell in 1946 and US-based Bell Laboratories made a major breakthrough in solar cell efficiency in 1954.
Today, economic and environmental realities are refocusing attention on solar power technology, and in Taiwan, high levels of research and development are prevalent in the sector, especially in Tainan County’s Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP), where many of the major players in the solar industry now etch the steel and glass profiles of their headquarters buildings against the sky. These companies are combining innovative engineering with an environmental slant and the entrepreneurial genius for which Taiwan is renowned.
Appropriately, the first Solar Optoelectronic Equipment Forum and Exposition was held in Tainan County in May. Jointly organized by the Industrial Technology Research Institute, the Taiwan Photovoltaic Industry Association and the Taiwan Optoelectronic and Semiconductors Equipment Association, the show zeroed in on future trends in the industry while highlighting current achievements in research and development (R&D).
The Rooster Crows
Cock Rooster Lighting Co. takes its name from the rooster of the Chinese Zodiac, which is not coincidentally the zodiac sign of founder and president Hsu Minka. Hsu began business in his hometown of Pingtung in southern Taiwan as a conventional incandescent lighting manufacturer some 20 years ago. However, he soon began to ponder how to earn a profit by providing greener lighting sources.
Saving the environment, he thought, could only come about through committing to the use of solar power. To that end, his company outsourced the production of solar cells and repackaged them in a way no one had dreamed of doing before. Enter Cock Rooster’s ingenious Solar Puzzle 305 solution, which features 10-watt modules that can be connected to each other to form larger panels with higher outputs.
Cock Rooster’s secret lies in its patented design that allows its modules to be connected together into panels, as well as in Lucite, the material that encloses the solar cells. Lucite is an acrylic material that resists dust, is waterproof and offers 92 percent light transmission. It is also strong--at the center, Cock Rooster’s panels are able to bear a load of up to 100 kilograms. “Our new Puzzle 305 uses the same packaging material that is used in a fighter jet’s cabin windows, and it can be connected up like a puzzle to fit any application,” says Albert Yang, the company’s sales manager.
Motech is playing a leading role in the construction of a solar city at Tainan’s Southern Taiwan Science Park. Solar cells will feed an energy infrastructure grid capable of serving 4,000 users. (Courtesy of Motech Solar Inc.)
LoF Affair
While Cock Rooster offers custom solar energy solutions for homes and offices, LoF Solar Corp. has developed a concept that is helping solar panels shake their stodgy image. In short, LoF’s solar panels improve the energy efficiency of colored solar cells, making them suitable for use on building exteriors, a technique known as building-integrated photovoltaics.
LoF CEO and chairman Hwang Huey-liang, a Taiwanese inventor and former academic, was one of the most gifted students of the late J.K. Loferski, a pioneer in the commercialization of photovoltaics in the 1950s.
Loferski visited Taiwan on numerous occasions and was a keynote speaker at the 1980 convention of the Chinese Engineering Society in Kaohsiung, where, before more than 1,000 delegates, he declared that sunlight energy was “the last frontier of mankind.” Inspired by his erstwhile mentor--it is not hard to guess the inspiration behind LoF’s name--Hwang and his team are busily heading toward Loferski’s last frontier. “The fundamental principles [of solar cells] are easy to know, but not easy to fully understand,” Hwang says. “On top of this you need the innovation that contributes to future development.”
Conventional solar cells are constructed like wafers, he explains, and usually have a blue tint because they have a thin coating of silicon nitrite that prevents sunlight from being reflected. In the past, this meant that architects who designed solar buildings had only one color with which to work. Addressing this deficiency, solar cell manufacturers began developing thin color films to allow specific colors to filter through, effectively creating cells of that hue. However, these colored solar cells were significantly less efficient--11 to 15 percent less--than uncolored ones. LoF’s breakthrough, arrived at through extensive R&D, has been to close that efficiency gap to less than 1 percent.
LoF began business earlier this year and will begin in-house production of solar cells in 2009. The company’s market research indicates that in the next few years, the use of solar energy products is expected to rise 15 percent. Hwang predicts that within the next five years, Europe--with Germany at the forefront--will be the biggest market for solar energy products. To meet this anticipated demand, LoF plans to produce 2 gigawatts of solar cells by the end of the next decade.
A Bright Idea
Motech Solar Inc., another business founded by an academic, is now one of the fastest growing companies in Northeast Asia. Motech is the world’s sixth largest producer of solar cells and Taiwan’s top player in this sun-fueled industry. It is also taking a leading role in initiating construction of the new Solar City in STSP with an investment of NT$100 million (US$3.3 million). The Solar City will feature an energy infrastructure grid that will eventually serve 4,000 users. Users will also receive government subsidies for installing their own solar energy generation facilities supplying 2 kilowatts or more--equal to the amount of electricity needed to supply a normal household. Excess generated power will be fed back into the grid.
Motech’s story began a little more than 10 years ago when Simon Tsuo was traveling through the western reaches of mainland China. During his visit, Tsuo, a former researcher for Stanford University, NASA and the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory, tried to turn on a light. However, a power failure meant that he had to read by candlelight instead. Still, the power outage led Tsuo to ponder alternate energy sources, which led him to think again about solar energy. And although the literal light bulb did not turn on, a figurative one about starting his own solar power business did.
In February this year, E-TON Solar completed installation of solar panels, visible at the top of the photo, that provide some of the power for London’s City Hall. E-TON president Tsai Chin-yao is third left. (Courtesy of E-TON Solar)
Tsuo struggled to raise capital at first. However, after he talked about his ideas with one of his former classmates, Cheng Fu-tien, Cheng discussed Tsuo’s solar vision with members of a Rotary Club chapter in Tainan. Cheng must have made an impressive sales pitch, because members of the club invested NT$152.2 million (US$5 million) in the budding business.
Startup capital secured and with Cheng serving as company chairman and Tsuo as CEO, Motech began building a plant at STSP in February 2000. Operations began in July that year as Motech became the first Taiwanese company to produce silicon solar cells. Today, with a 450-member staff, the company is steadily enlarging its global operations. Motech predicts that its output capacity in Taiwan and mainland China will surge to 2 gigawatts worth of solar panels in the next three to five years. The company’s US affiliate, AE Polysilicon Corp., will begin volume production sometime in 2009 with an output of 100 megawatts of solar cells per year.
While working to beef up output capacity, Motech has also won lucrative orders, including one from California-based Solar Power Inc. for 11 megawatts worth of 6-inch (15.2-centimeter) solar cells and another from Solar Semiconductor of India for 120 megawatts worth of solar cells. Motech and Solar Semiconductor have also agreed to work together on development of thin-film solar cell technology and silicon-wafer supplies.
Civic Power
In February this year, Taiwanese company E-TON Solar completed installation of solar panels that provide power for London’s City Hall. The total installed capacity of E-TON’s panels now equals some 50,000 kilowatt hours each year--or 1.5 percent--of the building’s electrical needs. That may not sound like much, but it will prevent more than 28,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants from entering the atmosphere each year. Moreover, the project demonstrated the feasibility of retrofitting uniquely designed buildings with solar cells, a task that was not easy given the structure’s domed roof and “eyelash” shading system.
Concerned about the effects of global warming and resource depletion, E-TON chairman Stephen Wu took up the cause of solar energy when he started the company in 2002. His personal dedication has become E-TON’s corporate mission, as the company focuses on developing solar cells to “provide safe, reliable, and clean energy, which will benefit our society and our children.”
Accordingly, E-TON Solar is developing products with innovative technologies such as a process that employs gases to deposit thin, solid films on silicon substrates, resulting in more efficient, higher voltage cells. Current annual production capacity is 200 megawatts and will expand to 320 megawatts by the end of this year.
Pulling off the City Hall contract is more than just a feather in Wu’s cap--it is more like a badge of honor for good corporate policy and clean green sense. Today, with the cost of fossil fuels rising to all-time highs and concerns mounting over carbon emissions and global warming, local solar cell manufacturers such as E-TON are relying on Taiwan’s established strengths--entrepreneurial spirit, R&D capacity and technical capability--to help solve some of the world’s most pressing issues.
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David Monson is a writer and media consultant based in Taipei.
Lighting Up with LED
Generating electricity with solar panels can help cut reliance on fossil fuels, but if that electricity is wasted because it is used in inefficient electrical devices, real cost savings--and environmental benefits--will be slight. This is why Cock Rooster teamed up with Taiwan light emitting diode (LED) manufacturer Everlight on an innovative traffic-light project in Kaohsiung.
With Cock Rooster’s solar panels providing the power and Everlight the LED lighting, the city’s new traffic signals require just 20 watts of electricity, compared with the 150 watts drawn by traffic signals with incandescent bulbs. The LED lights also last up to 10 years, compared with the two years for incandescent bulbs in conventional traffic signal lighting. There can be as many as 400 Everlight LEDs arranged in a typical traffic signal head, whereas older signal heads have three incandescent bulbs.
Malaysian-born and US-educated electrical engineer P.L. Chew heads up Everlight’s Infrared Products Business Unit. A self-professed “sensor freak,” he lights up like an LED when he speaks about the company’s technology, components and products. Although Chew admits that LED lighting is not yet as available as traditional fluorescent and halogen lights, it is “very much a part of tomorrow,” he says.
In an LED there are no filaments to heat up as in traditional lights. Instead, the light is created by a cleverly designed, tiny electronic chip. The lights are extremely energy efficient, converting approximately 90 percent of the electricity they consume into light. Incandescent bulbs convert only 10 to 15 percent.
The fact that LED modules are expensive, Chew explains, is offset by their long life expectancy and the fact that single lamps in larger arrays can be replaced if they burn out. “If LED lighting is already in the office, then there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be in the home,” he says. “Everlight will spearhead the campaign to get it there.
--David Monson
Copyright © 2008 by David Monson