The Future of Solar Energy: An Interview with John Sedgwick
John Sedgwick is the Co-founder and Vice President of Solaicx, a company that manufactures silicon ingots and wafers for solar electric (PV) panels. They are then supplied to solar panel manufacturers across the globe.
Solaicx began production at their new manufacturing plant in Portland, Oregon at the end of 2007. While current capacity of the plant is 40 MW, production will increase to 180 MW in the future.
CleanTechnica: What kinds of general trends have you seen in the solar industry as a whole?
John Sedgwick: The general objective of the entire industry is to reduce costs. What we see in markets across the world is, as you lower the levelized costs of solar electricity down to the levelized cost of traditional electricity, the markets just go vertical. When you look over time, the industry is doing dramatically well at reducing costs.That’s even when you take into account some significant challenges, things like polysilicon shortages and other shortages that have popped up as a direct result of a market that has been growing at 35%, 40%, and 50% a year have caused shortages that have increased some costs in the chain. Yet, because of manufacturing efficiencies, conversion efficiencies, and economies of scale, the industry has been able to hold the line on any cost increases and has done pretty well at reducing costs.
