This article looks at developments that are ongoing at the Technical University of Freiberg, together with different industrial partners. The photovoltaic industry will, in the next few years, create over 20 Gigawatt peak additional production per year, compared to today. Depending on the development of the different techniques for PV modules, this will require about 1M/t of additional flat glass production, especially that with a low iron content. According to the author, there are about 5% of module costs that are due to glass and with new thin layer techniques in PV production, this cost could reach between 15-20%. The industry is asked to reach grid parity (same cost of electricity from PV modules compared to the cost of electricity from network) by 2015 or earlier. This means that module costs have to be reduced to 30% of actual costs.
