Andrew Ling

Cloudy Future for Applied Material's SunFab - Barron's

Eli, if AMAT's equipment is really able to produce at $.80/watt the $3 capex/watt investment may be worthwhile. The question would then shift to installation costs. The physically huge panels should in theory also reduce installation costs. However, we'll have to wait and see since as you mentioned no one has yet dealt with such huge panels. If they succeed in economically installing such huge panels I'd expect FSLR to follow suit within the next few years with a larger substrate.

Installation costs really are one of the few things the monocrystaline manufacturers have going for them, along with limited area systems such as the retail market. Lower efficiency panels involve higher installation costs.

Cloudy Future for Applied Material's SunFab - Barron's

Eli, AMAT never said their sunfab equipment could produce cheaper than FSLR. I'm assuming the 17% cheaper figure is based off of AMAT's 2010 goal of $1.00/watt vs FSLR's 2007 costs of $1.17. Hardly a fair comparison. Check out my similar article
seekingalpha.com/artic...

First Solar's $1/Watt Capex: Half the Industry Average

Thanks for pointing out the error I made with Sharp's capex. Is efficiency estimated to be greater than 10% by the time the plant is completed? I don't know how well Sharp moves technology from the lab to mass production. FSLR's 10.5% efficiency will most likely be around 12% by that time.

First Solar's $1/Watt Capex: Half the Industry Average

Yes, any time your comment concludes with the statement "no joking" you know you have problems. Of course he could should be ending every sentence with that.