Any PV technology that hopes to compete with c-Si in today’s solar energy world must solve several problems: raise conversion efficiencies to around those of silicon-based cells (at least 20 percent), lower costs below that of c-Si (roughly $0.40-$0.50/Watt), or find specific niche markets where an alternative PV technology's features and capabilities are an acceptable tradeoff for lower cost/performance, such as flexibility.

In the past few months, the thin-film CIGS sector has made impressive progress in solving part of that equation. It's eclipsed the top efficiency mark of polysilicon-based cells (20.4 percent), and hasn't looked back:

Generally speaking, NanoMarkets sees DSC-enabled BIPV applications likely inching closer to mass production levels toward the end of the decade, with the first commercial production of DSC modules coming within a five-year window from leading manufacturers such as Dyseol and 3GSolar. BIPV glass, the current hot-spot for DSC application, has channeled many investments and pilot efforts, particularly in Europe but with backing from Asian partners. Our latest analysis suggests the market for DSC-enabled BIPV glass will surge from just $1.3 million to more than $256 million in 2021.

Beyond BIPV, NanoMarkets recognizes other end market opportunities for DSC that could bear fruit with higher-efficiency technology that works in low/ambient light conditions. However, we feel these are still several years further out from being viable revenue streams, and well short of the scale promised by BIPV:

NanoMarkets believes that perovskite's rapid trajectory of efficiency improvement, with potential pairing of DSC's features, could very well attract heightened interest from investors, strategically from within the industry and/or from capital markets, which could accelerate innovation and product development efforts and shorten the combined technologies' runway toward commercialization.

Many of the firms that jumped into the smart lighting space a few years back have disappeared or been acquired under fire sale conditions.  Some apparently innovative smart lighting products have also been launched, yet have been greeted with a yawn by the lighting marketplace.

NanoMarkets continues to see smart lighting as a major business opportunity over the next decade.  But we think it will take both a new kind of technology and a different focus to make it happen

The environment has changed since NanoMarkets last published a report on silver inks and pastes. We think that current trends in silver inks and pastes markets will change the opportunities available to suppliers and shift their focus going forward.  

NanoMarkets believes that in the past year or so the smart lighting industry has begun to grow up. It has begun to focus on what the opportunities are for its products rather than simply dwelling on technical issues. Our sense of the market is that in the past, next-generation smart lighting firms have been uncourageous about saying how their systems differ from each other and from the previous generation of lighting management systems. We now appear to have reached a stage in the evolution of the smart lighting business, where firms in this space must think hard about what they really have to offer.

Smart lighting has for years been controlled by lighting control systems firms, companies focused on lighting systems rather than individual luminaires or building-wide energy management. What is different in 2014 is the extent to which multiple industries are actively pursuing smart lighting, a factor NanoMarkets emphasizes in our most recent report on the topic. We are seeing increased interest in smart lighting from large lighting companies, building automation firms, LED chip makers, and even software companies and network communications firms. All these sectors have the chance to benefit from growth in smart lighting, but they will need to focus on more than merely energy efficiency.

The companies most likely to find success in the next few years are those targeting advances that are poised for growth, such as lighting specifically designed to improve mood or health. Initial revenues in health and mood lighting are likely to come from the medical sector, which is not as cost-conscious as other industries.

In order to move beyond a niche product, building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) will need to demonstrate both improved efficiency and lower cost. NanoMarkets believes that BIPV should be able to benefit from the growth that we expect to see in the PV market as a whole, but the degree to which it succeeds will likely depend on advances in technology and choice of PV materials. This may require switching to improved or completely different materials than what is commonly used today. Our latest report on BIPV glass, “BIPV Glass Markets– 2014 and Beyond,” describes PV technologies being used for this application today and analyzes which materials are likely to gain market share in the future.

While silicon PV is currently king of the PV landscape, CIGS is a PV technology that has the potential to make significant inroads in the next several years.  While progress has been slow due to the complexity of co-depositing four elements to generate the material and the need for encapsulation of the moisture-sensitive product, the high efficiency of CIGS (near that of single crystal PV), coupled with the requirement for only small amounts of the raw materials, provides one of the few paths to beating current Si-based PV in terms of cost.