关于renewable energy

现在已经变成一个大坑了啊。。。大家都想往里面跳。但是renewable energy有不少的分支。我和这边的一些人聊过之后以纯功利的（毕业后找到个好工作）眼光说两句对于一些分支的简单看法。请注意时效性，这水文09年9月写的，我是大概算上了四五年毕业的时间。四五年以后选择入学的方向是不是这个标准我完全不知。再注意，纯功利，纯找工作。而且是找工作，不等同于以后职业发展，只是为了让刚毕业的学生能比较容易有几年industry的经验而已。

太阳能热：领先太阳能电池，好找工作。不过我不知道还有多少学校有这个方向的研究。

风能：工业化规模大大领先太阳能电池。不过和太阳能热估计都应该在ME系？不清楚学校的研究现状，只知道风能电站已经能做得很大很大了，xxxMW的电站新闻都不怎么吸引眼球了，嗯。。。

燃料电池：远远落后于太阳能电池，只想找工作的同学，本Q坚决建议不要碰这个方向。我知道作为研究方向燃料电池很热，很多同学做这个，但事实就是。。。这个东西不靠谱，找工作别指望这个方向能给你加分了。

核能：工业化很好了，就不多讲了，也不是很了解。

太阳能电池：也许不是未来几年最好找工作的方向，但肯定是现在最热泡沫最大的方向。当然有的方向找工作也是完全不靠谱的。

首先只要和硅（先不管是哪种硅以及结构，有时间以后再讲吧。），铜铟镓硒，碲化镉，也许还有砷化镓，这四种核心材料构成的电池无关的方向，一律不要碰。

这话可能比较拗口，如果老师让你直接过去做某种电池的核心研究，那很容易看出来。比如去让你做micromorph硅的生长，那就去；如果让你去做xxx有机太阳能电池生长，那就谢绝~但是很多时候让你做的不是核心的器件而是一些相对周边的东西，这个时候仍然以这个部件所用在的核心器件作为区分标准。

举例：1，老师让你过来坐氮化镓的抗反射/钝化层，你而这个层是用在硅类电池上的，那这个方向就可以做，任何一个单/多晶硅太阳能电池都需要这个功能层；2，老师让你做量子点太阳能电池，你一看要做量子点的材料，都是一些乱七八糟没见过的化合物，那就别指望能靠这个找到好工作了。3，老师让你做背电极，你发现如果是给碲化镉电池座背电极的，那还能指望毕业之后去First Solar赚大把美元，如果是给什么染料敏化作背电极的，直接pass。。。要是燃料敏化10年内能工业化本Q就把笔记本吃了。。。4，比如做Concentrator的，发现是给硅基底砷化镓外延用的，那就去学吧，也许MS两年毕业后工业界的Concentrator还没大火，但这个方向是太阳能电池能有效进入grid的唯一途径。这个算中性的，有人不赞同concentrator的道路，但本Q个人是比较支持的，如果这个方向大家再问问别人吧~；5，老师让你去做flexible substrate，如果是为了长铜铟镓硒的，那本Q祝你毕业后能去nanosolar赚大把的美刀；如果是长什么organic材料的。。本Q衷心祝你日后不要以post-doc的身份退休。。。

个人观念，希望对大家有用，欢迎讨论。

啥时候才能形成很大产业阿, 下次经济腾飞就等renewable energy了.

希望这次不要再让人们失望了...
Warald 发表于 2009-9-22 22:53

I'm just back from an American Solar Energy Society talk and don't have Chinese input now.

But this topic is interesting so let's do some simple discussions. Just for photovoltaics.

The total installation of 2008 is about 5GW. The cost of mc-Si panels which are currently dominating the market is around ~$3 per watt. There are exceptions:

a, sc-Silicon: much more expensive than mc-Si though efficiency is higher;

b, a-Si/uc-Si and other silicon thin films: cheaper than mc-Silicon. For example AMAT claims Sunfab can make panels at cost of ~$1.5. But the market response is not good since efficiency is not reasonably high enough. The space of the residents' house roofs are limited so generally this type of panels can only be used in solar farms, public utilities, etc. which are not space sensitive. These will be the main topics I will work on for my PhD and I believe in coming years we players can make the cost below $1 while improving the module efficiency to around ~12%, which are essential for roof application. Major players are Q-Cell, AMAT, Orelikon, etc.

c, CdTe and CIGS: Cheaper than sc-Si and mc-Si. Detailed costs various from manufactures. But most of the compounds players are still on the stage of R&D rather than mass production. So they don't count. There are two exceptions in this category which I have to emphasis. The first one is FirstSolar which is CdTe based. First Solar has production capability larger than 1GW per year and the cost is surprisingly as low as ~ $0.8 per watt, with which it can easily kick the ass of everyone else. It sell the panels for 3-5 times higher than the real cost. The second raising giant is NanoSolar. After boasting for one or two years NanoSolar finally began to ramp up mass production weeks before, with a capacity of 640MW (I'm not quite sure). We still don't know the cost, but there are things that are very attractive: roll-to-roll line (or say, print on flexible substrate) fabrication which can be extremely cheap compared with other high temperature, vacuum fabrication required by silicon thin films and CdTe, and also fits more installation conditions than rigid-substrate panels; efficiency as high as ~16% with average efficiency higher than ~11%. (Keep in mind that FirstSolar can only achieve around 10% on module level, and it's not flexible substrate and print!)

Sorry, it's a little bit long. So now we can see, suppose the average price is $3 per watt, then even without the wafer/ingot players (in mc/sc silicon solar field), the manufacture equipment players (especially for traditional semiconductor giants, it can be BIG business, one turnkey line sold by AMAT or Orelikon can easily pass millions of $), the balance of system players, the business has already been more than $10 billion of capacity.

The problem is that these can never be achieved without the long-term governmental supports, ie. feed-in-tariffs, incentives, tax credits, etc. The threshold price below which solar electricity can crush traditional electricity is ~$1 Watt. We can see FirstSolar can earn real profits, and probably will NanoSolar. Then what left in US? SunPower can't even hold its own California market from SunTech. Spin-offs of Princeton, Gatech, Toledo, and universities in Colorado are no more than big pilot lines. They are jokes compared with Q-Cell, Suntech, Sharp and other big players..

So now it's more a policy than a lucrative business. But the future is bright. With the production capacity and efficiency go higher the cost will fall faster. Also the critical wafer/ingot supply problem now no longer exists and the price of mc wafer/ingot has fallen by more than 70%. Now the panels in market are probably made by the wafers/ingots bought years ago so it's interesting to see what will the cost of panels be like when new panels made by cheap raw materials appear.

Cheers

2020还在学，专业顶着个renewable energy虚名，其实学的还是EE的强电方向

做电动车的路过~不知道博主如今是一个怎样的观点。

哇~牛人 鼓掌

现在问这个话题的人多, 努赞牛文！

现在问这个话题的人多, 努赞牛文！
Warald 发表于 2009-9-21 19:44

其实大多数要进renewable energy的人也就是做燃料电池和太阳能电池。
燃料电池就不说了。。。前段时间GreenTechMedia都出文章批了燃料电池需要回到实验室。。
太阳能电池也有非常多的种类，而且也有很多的功能部件，不是每个都好找工作的。

其实大多数要进renewable energy的人也就是做燃料电池和太阳能电池。
燃料电池就不说了。。。前段时间GreenTechMedia都出文章批了燃料电池需要回到实验室。。
太阳能电池也有非常多的种类，而且也有很多的功能 ...
iq28 发表于 2009-9-22 11:03

啥时候才能形成很大产业阿, 下次经济腾飞就等renewable energy了.

希望这次不要再让人们失望了...

4# iq28

我硕士三年在国内作的燃料电池，结果作得我十分郁闷，并直接导致我放弃了在国内读博...

5# Warald

I think, renewable energy is as good as it gets.

1# iq28

楼主觉得锂电池和电动车的前景如何？

博士课题可能要做太阳能热的飘过……