BIPV Encapsulation Markets Preview

The PV market is undergoing dramatic change as the industry transitions from one of generous subsidies to one with dwindling subsidies, dramatically reduced prices, reduced margins, and anticipated massive consolidation. As the PV module market shifts towards a commodity business model with associated mergers, and many players are weeded out of the panel area, which dominates the overall solar industry, there are many in the industry looking for new business models with greater opportunities for high margin growth. 

NanoMarkets believes that one of the areas of high growth for solar PV is in building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV).This new wave of BIPV products represents an attractive opportunity for new encapsulation materials.  The current materials for flexible modules are relatively expensive to manufacture compared to the glass used in rigid modules. However, for BIPV applications, where product lifetimes are 20-30 years, they represent a good value proposition for high-end applications today, and will have much wider appeal as costs come down.  The larger opportunities will be in the newest generation of materials, which promise to reduce costs without reducing product lifetimes.

Metal Oxide Thin-Film Transistors as a Key Enabler for AMOLED Displays

If AMOLEDs cannot be deployed for large-area applications, then, by definition, AMOLEDs cannot replace LCDs as a dominant display technology.  Worse, if AMOLEDs are restricted to small mobile displays then economies of scale for both OLED material manufacture and the production of AMOLEDs themselves cannot kick in, again thwarting high hopes for AMOLED technology. NanoMarkets believes that the technology that will cut through this Gordian knot are backplanes that are based on metal oxide thin-film transistors (TFTs).  Such TFTs will also be sold into the conventional LCD sector and will generate more revenues from LCD applications than for AMOLED applications.  But in the AMOLED sector, they will be more essential and will prove a key enabling technology for AMOLEDs.

Reexamining Silver In Photovoltiacs

Over the past several years the photovoltaics (PV) market has been the single largest consumer of silver printing pastes, beating out even the big traditional markets like printed circuit boards and polymer thick-film membrane switches. But as the PV sector enters a period of flat or moderate growth in the next couple of years, the industry remains highly cost sensitive, and government subsidies are waning. Meanwhile, the ongoing shift in market share toward thin-film PV (TFPV) is changing the nature of the addressable market for silver materials in PV.   

There is some good news, however as most of the opportunities center on providing new silver-based products that help the panel makers reduce manufacturing costs.  Examples are: new silver printing pastes with reduced silver loadings that do not sacrifice performance; new printable silver materials that enable the fabrication of finer resolution silver traces; and new nanosilver-based options that enable low-cost, solution-processable and/or printable fabrication of transparent front electrodes.

Changes in the PV Market that May Influence the Adoption of Smart Coatings

NanoMarkets continues to believe that there are opportunities for commercialization of smart coatings in the photovoltaics (PV) sector, even though the PV market is quite different today than it was just a year ago, both from an economic and a political perspective.

Changes in the Photovoltaics Market for Transparent Conductors

NanoMarkets' eight-year forecasts suggest that the market for transparent conductors (TCs) in both inorganic and organic thin-film photovoltaics (TFPV) applications will be about $90 million in 2012 and grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 30 percent to a value of over $635 million by the end of the forecast period in 2019. NanoMarkets anticipates this growth despite the current difficult overall environment for PV, in which government subsidies are under threat and in which there are huge pressures to reduce TFPV costs to make TFPV competitive with c-Si PV and with other sources of energy in general.

The Aesthetic and Cost Promise of BIPV

Building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) is one of the biggest hopes for turning PV into a substantial industry that might eventually be self-sustaining without government subsidies.

Changes in PV and What It Means for Transparent Conductors

NanoMarkets anticipates significant challenges to the status quo in the photovoltaics (PV) market in the coming decade. The PV sector as a whole is entering a period of flat or moderate growth in the next couple of years, and the industry remains highly cost sensitive. Meanwhile, the ongoing shift in market share toward thin-film PV (TFPV) is changing the accepted landscape of available PV technologies. This movement, in turn, is causing a shift in demand for transparent conductors (TCs) in PV applications from market-dominant crystalline silicon (c-Si) PV that uses little or no TCs to TFPV that, in most cases, requires the use of high performance TC electrodes.

Applications Driving Growth in Conductive Coatings

Much of the conductive coatings business involves mature applications manufactured using equally mature materials.  In these mature materials markets, there are few real opportunities as such.  At best, these sectors are “cash cows.”  The good news, however, is that a few key applications are open to new materials and new suppliers.

The Importance of Electrodes for Lithium Battery Performance Improvement

Lithium-ion batteries are a technology poised to see a large growth in revenue in the next five years because of their potential in applications such as electric vehicles (EVs), consumer electronic devices and Smart Grid applications. That there is a clamoring in the market for a drastic improvement in lithium-ion battery technology is obvious to see:

Reality Check On CIGS PV

After years of results that have been disappointing compared to consensus expectations,  it is high time to take a sober look at the market for CIGS going forward in light of the current state of the technology and competitiveness of CIGS compared to other PV technologies.  Other factors playing into the mix are the likelihood of decreased subsidies for PV going forward in North America and Europe, and the effect of significant increases in known reserves of natural gas, which have lowered and stabilized prices compared to the volatility and high prices seen in the 2007-2008 timeframe.

Smart Windows Markets Emerge

After many years of being no more than a niche, the smart windows market now seems as if it is about to generate major revenues for companies that are actively involved.  Drivers include:

• Growing consumer awareness of energy conservation, green building, fuel efficient transportation, and the desire for novelty and convenience.

• Larger addressable markets as the result of emerging middle class populations in Asia (India, China) and Latin America (Brazil).

Meanwhile, new smart windows technologies are emerging that enable energy conservation through smart windows and hence are providing several growth opportunities for various companies in the smart window value chain.

The Role of NanoMetals and their Future in Electronics and Energy

At the nanoscale materials of all kinds—including metals—are higher performing.  In the case of nanometals, the performance characteristics of most importance tend to be thermal and electrical conductivity; although physical strength may factor in. Combining all these advantages together seems likely to be highly advantageous and NanoMarkets believes that the marketplace is beginning to reflect this fact; nanometals are a growing sector of the nanomaterials business.

Thoughts on Transparent Electronics

There is nothing intrinsically new about transparent electronic materials.  Glass and (more recently) transparent plastic have been used as substrates for displays, solar panels and large-area sensors for years.  In addition, a range of transparent conducting materials—notably indium tin oxide (ITO)—has been developed for use in transparent electrodes.  And, of course, optoelectronic materials—of which there are many—must be transparent to some degree.

Until quite recently the statements above were at best a set of interesting, but unconnected, observations.  Over the past decade new transparent electronic semiconductor materials—primarily metallic oxides—have appeared and there are now increasing signs that a complete transparent materials set may emerge in the electronics sector. These materials, NanoMarkets believes, will serve as an important enabling factor for new products in the display, smart windows, lighting, solar panel and large-area sensor markets; perhaps other sectors too.

Ongoing Importance of Silver Inks and Pastes to Industrial Electronics Markets

Silver has always been an expensive metal and probably always will be.  But the most obvious change in the silver inks/pastes market since our last report is the seemingly persistent high price of silver, with no relief in sight.  Silver commodity prices have been pushed upward because of the uncertain global economic environment in which investors have shifted increasingly toward “hard” assets. Silver ETFs have accumulated large stores of silver in order to handle the increased demand for precious metal investments.

At the time of writing, silver prices have somewhat stabilized, but they have done so at a level nearly twice that of just two years ago (in inflation-adjusted dollars).  And there are no good reasons that the situation will change very much over the next five years or so.

Transparent Conductors and Touch Screens

In this article NanoMarkets examines the current thinking on market opportunities for transparent conductors in touch screen markets. 

OLED Lighting Materials

Development of OLED technology for lighting markets is not as mature as for displays, but NanoMarkets still expects this sector to grow dramatically over the coming decade.  And because OLED lighting panels are likely to be a (1) a mass market and (2) consist of panels a lot larger than the average OLED displays, the market for OLED lighting materials should ultimately be a lot larger than those for materials in the display sector.  However, much more risk is associated with the lighting sector, for materials suppliers and just about everyone else.

NanoMarkets believes that materials suppliers will play a big role in whether the OLED lighting industry booms or settles into a niche pattern.  For real, sustained growth in OLED lighting, new, better materials and processes are needed to enable this growth.

The Value of Flexible Glass

The value that would be created by a flexible glass material has long been recognized.  Supposedly the Roman Emperor Tiberius was presented with a drinking bowl made of flexible glass.  The Emperor threw the bowl on the floor and it dented rather than shattered.  But not much seems to have been heard of flexible glass since.  NanoMarkets research has uncovered that over the past few decades the term “flexible glass” has come to be used in a metaphorical sense, to describe a series of materials that were made from resins and plastics and that otherwise had glass-like properties.  Unfortunately these flexible pseudo-glasses could seldom compete with actual glass in terms of transparency or in its barrier qualities.

However, since the early 21st Century a handful of leading glass companies have been developing genuinely flexible glasses that are the heirs to Tiberius’ bowl.  The firms involved in this work include AGC (more commonly referred to as Asahi Glass), Nippon Electric Glass (NEG), Tokyo Electron Glass (TEG) and Schott Glass.  However, the firm that is most closely associated with flexible glass is Corning, which certainly has the greatest mindshare in this space and has done the most business development work to promote the concept of flexible device.

Transparent Conductors and the Rise of the Nanomaterials

When NanoMarkets first started providing analysis of the transparent conductor (TC) industry, some six years or so ago, the industry was easy to characterize.  ITO ruled the roost, except where the market was looking for especially low-cost solutions; in antistatic applications.   True, executives in the display industry – and even in the transparent conductor industry itself – knew all the unkind things to say about ITO.  It cracked, it cost a lot, even that it had a yellowish tinge, etc., etc.

When one examined at the alternatives, ITO began to look pretty good.  None of them could compete with ITO on the crucial transparency and conductivity parameters.  In any case, most of the alternatives to ITO were not ready for prime time; at best they were in that limbo phase called sampling.  The threat to ITO from its rivals was negligible.

Investment Opportunities in the OLED Encapsulation Business

After many years of languishing, OLEDs have finally emerged as a real market, and the opportunities for growth are great, especially for firms that can offer encapsulation technologies with tangible performance and cost benefits over the market-dominant cover glass strategies in use today.

Where Are The Opportunities For Flexible Substrates?

Flexible electronics have attracted a great deal of interest in recent years. At least in theory, they offer a number of important advantages for displays, lighting, solar panels and sensors.  In addition, flexibility to some degree is implied in the notion of R2R processing.  Each of these applications requires different strategic thinking about the appropriate flexible substrate to use, but there is also an important commonality which NanoMarkets believes will create a vibrant market for flexible substrates of all kinds.

Where Are the Opportunities for OLED Encapsulation Materials?

OLEDs are highly vulnerable to oxygen and water vapor, so they present an encapsulation issue; developments to improve barrier performance have been discussed in the OLED industry since its earliest days. Until recently, however, OLED encapsulation materials represented a relatively small market for chemical companies and a few startups. For many years there were few signs that OLEDs were going to break out of their niche market pattern, with almost all of the OLED market being accounted for by passive matrix displays for MP3 payers, cell phone sub-displays, etc.

The situation was further complicated by the popular notion among OLED manufacturers that encapsulation was the least of their worries, since most OLEDs could be successfully encapsulated in a stack that often also included desiccant under glass using epoxy adhesives for edge sealing. The simple glass and epoxy encapsulation approach was not only all that was required for small displays, it was all that display makers were willing to pay for, and it continues to be the principal encapsulation strategy in place today.

Even as the size of the passive matrix OLED business grew, true opportunities for OLED encapsulation were highly limited, and few materials firms were able to sustain a business based on encapsulation materials alone.  And although materials suppliers were initially happy to supply these applications, they did so with the expectation that markets large enough to justify their efforts would eventually emerge.

Real Opportunities in OLED Materials Markets

NanoMarkets predicts that the OLED materials market will increase from $317 million in 2011 to just over $5 billion in 2018, with revenues from cathode, anode and encapsulation materials gaining in importance over the period. This strong growth is fueled by a sea change in the status of the OLED industry.  For many years, the industry has been plagued with the low volume/high price conundrum for several years.  But that that situation appears to be changing, according to NanoMarkets’ recent report, Markets for OLED Materials-2011.  

Uses of alt-TCOs as Transparent Conductors

The motivation for using alt-TCOs is usually that money can be saved on materials, and  most often because large amounts of indium can be avoided.  This matter has taken on a new urgency in view of recent Chinese industrial and trade policy, which favors controls on exports of indium.  The Chinese government has also shut down environmentally unsound indium extraction facilities.  The potential opportunities for alt-TCOs seem to have grown as a result, although these TCOs also now have to compete increasingly with next-generation transparent conductors that will almost certainly outperform them given time. Adding to the fun are new applications for alt-TCOs and the emergence of new kinds of TCOs.  One new application that we see as being of considerable importance for these materials is so-called smart windows.  Such windows have enjoyed niche status for many years, but may well emerge as a mass market product if the green building movement continues to fulfill it's promise.

Konarka and Krupp:  Together At Last

The recent announcement that Konarka Technologies, leader in the organic PV (OPV) space, has teamed with the ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe is a potential game changer for OPV.  Interest in OPV remains strong; new firms, new capacity and new products. Yet that OPV has not fulfilled its early promise is a conclusion that remains inescapable.  It was always understood that OPV would be low efficiency, but this was supposed to be compensated for by low dollars per watt too.  But it hasn’t happened.

Reconsidering Inkjet Inks Opportunities

Inkjet once seemed well positioned to gain revenues, market share and expanded addressable markets as the result of the demise of contact printers in the office.  Ultimately, however, it lost much of that market to low-cost laser printers.  As a result, the inkjet industry has been pushed into looking for new opportunities.  Its most noticeable success has been in providing color printers for the home and small business markets at prices that make these printers almost throwaway items.  Far less noticeable has been the rise of industrial inkjet, initially for graphics and, more recently for functional printing. With the home computing sector reaching some level of maturity, functional printing in particular (which remains at a very early stage of its evolution) looks like a potentially profitable future direction for the inkjet industry.

How Long Can TCOs Reign in the PV World and What Comes Next?

The market for transparent conductors sold into the photovoltaics (PV) sector for electrodes is currently made up of transparent conducting oxides (TCOs), including indium tin oxide (ITO).  PV, however, is the first major high-performance application for transparent conductors to largely shake its dependence on ITO in favor of less-costly TCOs, mainly tin oxide- and zinc oxide-based materials.  This places the PV industry in the somewhat comfortable position of having relatively few cost incentives for making changes to the transparent conductors used; the status quo—TCOs—are already cheap.

Why Smart Windows Will Become Big Business

NanoMarkets believes that the market for smart windows will grow substantially over the next eight years, becoming a billion-dollar market by 2015 and then more than doubling by 2018.  There are several driving factors for this growth, which are discussed in the main body of this report and outlined in this article.

How Smart Coatings Can Add Value to PV

The largest traditional opportunity for smart coatings firms in the PV space appears to be in the area of self-cleaning coatings. While the revenues from self-cleaning coatings sales into the PV market are tiny at the present time, we think they could reach $280 million by the end of the forecast period.  The reason why this counts as a “traditional” application is that it speaks directly to increasing conversion efficiencies; a clean panel is an efficient panel! With self-cleaning smart coatings, PV panels can avoid the dirt buildup that can cause competitive panels to drop in conversion efficiency and power output.

Why the Old Business Cases for ITO Alternatives are Not Enough

The business cases for ITO alternatives have historically focused on being an "antidote" for ITO's high cost, brittleness, and whatever else could be perceived as a negative aspect of ITO. And with indium prices volatile and reaching as high as $1,000 per kilogram, it seemed as though it would only be a matter of time before many—or even all—ITO users were beating down the doors to get the magic elixir.   About four years ago, for example, NanoMarkets researchers were told by a manufacturer of carbon nanotube films that within a few years as much as 50 percent of LCDs would use carbon nanotube films instead of ITO.

Opportunities in Thin-Film PV Materials

Despite the end of the silicon shortage and the economic problems that beset much of the developed world, and the construction industry in particular, the prospects for thin-film photovoltaics (TFPV) still look quite good.  The thin-film silicon sector is recovering from a bad couple of years as it has both adapted to the end of the silicon shortage and weeded out non-productive suppliers.  First Solar, which dominates the CdTe sector, seems to have survived the downturn quite nicely.  And the CIGS sector, while it has yet to keep its promise of high-efficiency with all the advantages of conventional solar panels, at least is still keeping that promise alive.  In addition, while the end of the silicon shortage may have got rid of one of the main reasons why TFPV experienced a boom in the first place, the fact that TFPV can offer flexible PV products for building-integrated PV (BIPV) applications is a new reason why TFPV might be chosen over conventional PV.

Advanced Encapsulation for Photovoltaics: Where are the Opportunities?

There are some segments of the PV industry that are chomping at the bit for better encapsulation solutions; better either from the standpoint of performance or cost.  In order to make money in the encapsulation business it is important to understand where performance is needed.   NanoMarkets’ research indicates that the best markets for advanced encapsulation firms to concentrate on are thus CIGS PV and OPV.

The Future of Conductive Polymers:  Room for Improvement

Often described as a class of “miracle” advanced materials that will transform electronics and photovoltaics, the actual record of conductive polymers has been decidedly mixed.  For example, the expectations for polymer-based photovoltaics, or conductive polymers as a transparent conductive coating, have never been met.  And in the one area where organic electronics has taken off commercially—OLEDs—it is organic small molecule materials that have been widely used, not polymers.  To the extent that conductive polymers have been used in commercial applications, they have tended to be low-value applications; notably anti-statics.

This underachievement of conductive polymers has not been widely recognized, especially by trade, business and popular science publications which go on reporting on these materials as if they were highly successful in the marketplace, or at least soon will be.  As we have noted, however, this does not seem to be the case.  But this is not to say that conductive polymers do not have a commercial future.  This future, NanoMarkets believes, will depend on the clear identification of specific high-value applications where the use of conductive polymers makes sense because of their unique properties; that is, all the advantages of plastics with conductivity too.  It also depends on the resolution of a handful of important technical problems that continue to beset the conductive polymer business.

Encapsulation Opportunities for OPV and DSC

Organic PV (OPV) and Dye Sensitized Cell (DSC) PV have arguably been the two PV technologies that have struggled the most when it comes to making progress toward high-volume commercialization.  This is for several reasons including cost, conversion efficiency, and durability.  In direct competition with inorganic thin-film PV and crystalline silicon PV, OPV and DSC simply cannot compare on these fronts.  Instead, OPV and DSC are being forced to compete in lower-volume areas where their unique advantages (mentioned below) exclude competitive PV technologies in some way, and cost and conversion efficiency are less critical factors. 

Silver Conductive Inks and Pastes

Having studied the market for silver inks and pastes for five years now, NanoMarkets believes that any substitution away from silver inks and pastes will occur at the margin; there will be no wholesale abandonment of such inks and pastes.  Silver is entrenched in the conductive printing market simply because it is, without any reasonable dissension, the best material for the job.  In most cases, users of silver inks and pastes can’t do much more than reduce waste and shop around for the lowest-cost suppliers that fill their needs.

New Markets for Old Carbon:  The Energy Factor

In its report on carbon inks, pastes and coatings, NanoMarkets has identified a new breed of applications in the energy sector where conventional carbon inks and pastes have an important role to play and where substantial revenue opportunities will be available over the next five to eight years.  Carbon materials suppliers who can sell a “green tech” marketing story will be able to distinguish themselves in the marketplace with products which are, by all appearances, not garden variety carbon pastes.

The Thin-Film Silicon Perspective

To remain relevant, TF Si PV needs a breakthrough in cost or efficiency to compete long term with the other TFPV technologies.  On the absorber material front, the move from tandem junction cells containing Germanium to tandem cells with microcrystalline silicon as the lower absorber are a good first step to reducing cost/watt.  Silane demand will grow as microcrystalline silicon becomes the lower absorber material of choice. 

Smart Coatings Markets 2011

Conductive Coatings Markets

Current and Future Opportunities for ZnO Electronics

Zinc oxide (ZnO) has been used since the Bronze Age, but obviously not for its electrical properties; it was used as a salve and as an alloying agent to make bronze.  However, since the beginning of the 20^th century, ZnO has been used in a number of important electronics products including varistors, surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices, various kinds of EMI/RFI and anti-static coatings, as well as in coated paper used in copying technology prior to the commercialization of xerography.

Photovoltaics Shines Brightest for Silver

In serving the applications for silver inks and pastes, manufacturers and distributors face a quandary:  most of the high-growth markets for silver are relatively small, while the larger markets are already mature and generally offer only modest growth prospects.  But the photovoltaics market for silver inks and pastes offers the best of both worlds.  This segment is already approaching a billion dollars in annual revenues, but it will grow faster—in absolute terms—than any of the other silver ink categories, and it will challenge traditional thick-film applications for dominance of the overall silver electronics market in the coming years.  

ITO Alternatives:  Market Progress and a Thought Experiment

NanoMarkets' just-published analysis of the ITO alternatives market suggests that this market - much touted for several years - is ready to take off.  We have been following ITO alternatives for several years now and have generally been quite bullish on their long-term prospects.  In our latest report, however, we show that news from the alternative ITO "industry" is pointing towards accelerating commercialization.

Solid-State Lighting as an Opportunity for Silver Inks and Pastes

Market analysis by NanoMarkets suggests that within a relatively few years, sales of silver inks into the Solid State Lighting (SSL) business, will grow to $250 million, offering an entirely new opportunity for the silver ink business.  The main market will be found in OLED lighting, which itself predicted to grow fast in the coming years.  In this application, silver ink and pastes can serve in electrodes, bus bars and even as a transparent conductor.

A Future for Printed OLEDs

Although printed OLEDs have never quite achieved the success that some have projected for them, as this article shows, a surprisingly large number of the world’s biggest materials and chemical firms are betting on them.  The information for this article is drawn from NanoMarkets’ latest research report on OLED materials in which we forecast that sales of polymer OLED materials – the kind of OLED materials used in printed OLEDs – will reach $475 million in sales by 2017.

The Carbon Age:  Novel Applications for Carbon Nanotube and Graphene Inks and Pastes

Carbon inks have been a mainstay of the thick film electronics business for as long as most people can remember.  The established carbon inks are used with silver inks, either to adjust conductivity levels or to reduce costs; carbon, obviously, is priced at a lot less than silver.  And in a period of deflation, especially when this is (paradoxically) combined with high silver prices, NanoMarkets sees a growing opportunity for standard carbon inks to replace silver inks wherever this is technically possible.