First Solar, Inc. manufactures solar modules with an advanced thin film semiconductor
technology and provides comprehensive PV solutions that significantly reduce
solar electricity costs. By enabling clean, renewable electricity at competitive
prices, First Solar provides an economic and environmentally responsible alternative
to existing peaking fossil-fuel electric generation. First Solar PV power plants
operate with no water, air emissions or waste stream. First Solar set the benchmark
for environmentally responsible product life cycle management by introducing
the industry’s first comprehensive collection and recycling program for
solar modules. From raw material sourcing through end-of-life collection and
recycling, First Solar is focused on creating cost-effective renewable energy
solutions that protect and enhance the environment.
First Solar, Inc. manufactures solar modules on high-throughput production
lines and perform all manufacturing steps ourselves in an automated, proprietary,
continuous process. Our solar modules employ a thin layer of cadmium telluride
semiconductor material to convert sunlight into electricity. In less than three
hours, we transform a 2ft × 4ft (60cm × 120cm) sheet of glass into
a complete solar module, using approximately 1% of the semiconductor material
used by other manufacturers to produce crystalline silicon solar modules. Our
manufacturing process eliminates the multiple supply chain operators and expensive
and time consuming batch processing steps that are used to produce a crystalline
silicon solar module.
Our solar module is a single-junction polycrystalline thin film structure that
uses cadmium telluride as the absorption layer and cadmium sulfide as the window
layer. Cadmium telluride has absorption properties that are highly matched to
the solar spectrum and has the potential to deliver competitive conversion efficiencies
with approximately 1% of the semiconductor material used by traditional crystalline
silicon solar modules. Our thin film technology also has relatively high energy
performance in low light and high temperature environments compared with traditional
crystalline silicon solar modules.
Customers
We have Long Term Supply Contracts with sixteen principal customers for the
sale of solar modules. These customers include solar power system project developers,
system integrators and operators of renewable energy projects that are headquartered
throughout the European Union and the United States.
Our customers typically develop, own and operate solar power plants or sell
turnkey solar power plants to end-users that include owners of land, owners
of agricultural buildings, owners of commercial warehouses, offices and industrial
buildings, public agencies, municipal government authorities, utility companies
and financial investors that desire to own large scale solar power plant projects.
Raw Materials
Our manufacturing process uses approximately 20 types of raw materials and components
to construct a complete solar module. Of these raw materials and components,
the following nine are critical to our manufacturing process: TCO coated front
glass, cadmium sulfide, cadmium telluride, photo resist, laminate, tempered
back glass, cord plate/cord plate cap, lead wire (UL and TÜV) and solar
connectors. Before we use these materials and components in our manufacturing
process, a supplier must undergo a qualification process that can last up to
12 months, depending on the type of raw material or component. Although we continually
evaluate new suppliers and currently are qualifying several new suppliers, a
few of our critical materials or components are sole sourced and most others
are supplied by a limited number of suppliers. One critical raw material in
our production process is cadmium telluride.
Competition
The solar energy and renewable energy industries are both highly competitive
and continually evolving as participants strive to distinguish themselves within
their markets and compete within the larger electric power industry. Within
the renewable energy industry, we compete with other renewable energy technologies
including hydro, wind, geothermal, bio-mass and tidal. Within the solar energy
industry, we believe that our main sources of competition are crystalline silicon
solar module manufacturers, other thin film solar module manufacturers and companies
developing solar thermal and concentrated photovoltaic technologies. Among photovoltaic
module and cell manufacturers, the principal methods of competition are price
per watt, production capacity, conversion efficiency and reliability.