Norway
PV technology status and prospects
Knut-Erik Madsen, Oslo Energi AS		 home > annual reports > annual report 2000 >

General Framework

Photo 1: The Solar Skin, a BIPV double-façade developed by the Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU). The political and administrative authorities are discussing the introduction of new pollution taxes (e.g. climate gasses). This will however have an impact on fuel prices and energy consuming industry (metallurgy, paper etc) as well as on future domestic gas utilization. We do not foresee a direct influence on PV dissemination in the country.

The political willingness to encourage and promote research on new and friendly energy sources is unanimous. The public financial supports remains however modest, not increasing and limited to development of some basic materials.
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National Programme

There is one program with name NYTEK organized and financed by the Norwegian Research Council, stimulating research in the field of new renewable energy sources. Photovoltaic in this program is competing with bioenergy, wind, waves, hydrogen, thermal solar energy and others. During the period 1998-1999 the NYTEK program has founded research in the field of solar grade silicon at a level of approximately 4 million Norwegian kroner (NOK) each year. The background for this research is the existence of a strong national metallurgical silicon industry and a new silicon wafer industry, both having strong competence and interest for such a program.
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Research and Development, Demonstration

Funding of research & development (R&D) for PV has been kept at a fairly low level, primarily because of the limited number of researchers and companies involved in the area in Norway. However, due to recent industrial initiatives, this picture may be changed in the near future.

Two major competence programmes launched in 1998-1999 with the support of the Norwegian Research council and the industry:

The programs mainly focus on the first steps of the value chain, feedstock and ingot production and are supported by the Norwegian Silicon and pv industry.

Elkem ASA, the world's largest producer of Silicon metal has significantly strengthened its focus on solar grade Silicon feedstock. Elkem has been active in this field in the past decade and is now significantly stepping up the R&D activities mainly centered in Kristiansand. Elkem is working on several projects with different partners with the aim of meeting the increasing demand for solar grade Silicon feedstock. Limited availability and increasing prices for solar feedstock is considered a major threat to the further growth of the pv industry.

There is only a limited manufacturing activity in PV in Norway. One production facility for multicrystalline silicon wafers is in operation since 1997. The current production capacity is approximately 6 MWp with a planned increase to more than 30 MWp over the next three years. There are also some plans to start production of silicon cells in the next period. With the planned expansion of production capacity, employment is also expected to increase significantly over the next 5 years. Furthermore, this increase in industrial activity is expected also to provide an increase in R&D funding and public funds for demonstration and field test programmes.
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Table 1: Annual budget 1998 or 1999 (in million Norwegian kroner NOK) for R&D, demonstration/ field test programmes and market incentives.
  R&D Demo/ Field test Market
National in NOK (million) 4 0 0
State/regional 0 0 0
TOTAL 4 0 0
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Implementation

Two new demonstration projects have been launched and both will be opened and operating from mid 2000. These are:
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Industry Status

There was no production of cells or modules in the period 1998-1999 in Norway. In this period, however Norway has become a significant producer and supplier of multicrystalline silicon wafer for the world solar cells industry through the company ScanWafer AS. The technology applied is directional solidification of silicon followed by wafering by means of a multiwire sawing. Established in 1994 the company started to produce in 1997 and since then has been continuously increasing its output as combined results of internal improvement and capacity expansion. The nominal output capacity at the end of 1999 was corresponding to 6,3 MWp. All production is exported and purchased world-wide by cells and modules manufacturers.

An emerging Norwegian PV industry is clustering around ScanWafer. Figure 1 illustrates the companies in the value chain: There are no producers of other PV components (PV inverters, storage batteries, battery charge controllers, DC switchgear, supporting structures) in Norway. Neither are inverters sold for grid-connected applications.

Figure 1: From Silicon feedstock to Solar Energy Systems

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Market Development

The total cumulative installed PV power for each sub-market on the 31 December of each year from 1992 onwards is shown in Table 2.
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Table 2: Cumulative installed PV power in 4 sub-markets.
Sub-market/application 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
off-grid domestic 3 700 3 970 4 240 4 460 4 680 4 900 5 100 5 400
off-grid non-domestic 50 80 110 140 170 200 250 270
grid-connected distributed                
grid-connected centralized                
TOTAL 3 750 4 050 4 350 4 600 4 850 5 100 5 350 5 670
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Future Outlook

The most interesting trend in Norway for the development of PV is the emergence of a PV industry taking advantage of the national competence and resources.

The programs where Elkem are involved are addressing perhaps the most critical issue for the global PV industry, the emerging lack of sufficient volumes of feedstock for PV.

ScanWafer AS, the manufacturer of multi-crystalline silicon wafer for the international PV industry, presently represents the emerging PV industry. This company is rapidly expanding anticipating the market's needs. There are also plan to start production of silicon solar cells in Norway.
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Further reading about Norway

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