Opportunities and Competition for HCPV Companies

Usually, a technology having developed for decades of years, the market must reach maturity; in other words, manufacturers can not see great growth. However, there is exception in HCPV industry.

HCPV (high-concentrating Photovoltaics) market will maintain compound annual growth rate of 31% until 2017, with system revenue and module market coming to $1.6 billion and $700 million, respectively, according to Lux Research. The driving force mainly comes from emerging markets with high solar resources.

By using mirrors and lenses to concentrate light from the sun onto super-efficient cells to produce electricity, HCPV enables tapping more of the sun’s energy than other solar methods.

“It is expected HCPV to grow at a faster rate than competing technologies,” says Ed Cahill, Lux Research Associate, “as market shift due to subsidy cuts from distributed installations in low‐DNI (direct normal irradiance) environments such as Germany, to large installations in high‐DNI environments such as India.”

With solar junction record breaking 43.5% efficient cell and Spectrolab and Emcore scrambling to develop inverted metamorphic cells, Lux Research notes, the race to manufacture the most efficient solar cell is heating up. But opportunities are not equal to every participant; well-funded companies have more advantages.

However, there is also good news for small and companies. It is reported HCPV pioneer Amonix expanded too soon and too fast and has had to cut back, the struggle leaves the door open for emerging players such as Soitec, SunCore, and SolFocus.