NanoMarkets Issues Latest Report on Thin-Film Photovoltaic Encapsulation Market Opportunities

GLEN ALLEN, Va., Oct. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Industry analyst firm NanoMarkets today announced the release of its report titled "Markets for Inorganic and Organic Thin-Film PV Encapsulation." In this new report NanoMarkets estimates that encapsulation materials and technologies used in organic and inorganic thin-film PV (TFPV) markets will surpass $1 billion (USD) revenues by the year 2018. Additional details about the report are available at: http://nanomarkets.net/market_reports/report/PV_Encapsulation_2012

Within the report NanoMarkets also examines the product development and marketing strategies of the major players in the encapsulation materials sector from large companies such as 3M, Asahi Glass Company (AGC), Corning, DuPont, Nippon Electric Glass (NEG), PPG, Schott and Solutia, to specialty firms such Beneq, Tera-Barrier Films and UDC and we attempt to indicate which firms are the "companies to watch" and which will be the likely winners and losers in the encapsulation materials space.

The report also contains detailed, eight-year forecasts for the materials used for PV encapsulation, in both value ($ millions) and volume (area of material) terms, broken out by product type and application.

Encapsulation product types covered include:

• Rigid glass
• Flexible glass
• Multilayer thin films and laminates
• Conformal coatings
• Metal foils

Application sectors covered are:

• Thin-film silicon (TF-Si) PV
• Cadmium-telluride (CdTe) PV
• Copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) PV
• Dye-sensitized (solar) cell (DSC) PV, and
• Organic PV (OPV).

From the Report:

TFPV is diversifying away from thin-film silicon and cadmium-telluride PV, both of which dominate the market today, and toward increasing proportions of CIGS, dye-sensitized cell, and OPV, all of which place higher requirements on barrier performance than either TF-Si or CdTe PV.

Furthermore, new TFPV formats are on the rise, including both flexible versions of CIGS, OPV and/or DSC PV for both on- and off-grid applications and building-integrated PV (BIPV) formats based on various TFPV types, at least some of which are expected to be flexible. Roll-to-roll (R2R) fabrication methods are also important to the value propositions of these emerging segments of the TFPV industry.

As a result of these trends, the TFPV industry is beginning to recognize that high quality encapsulation is an area of strategic importance. NanoMarkets therefore believes that there exist now some real opportunities for the firms that have been working on the encapsulation issue, many of whom have poured resources into this area for several years.

• NanoMarkets forecasts that the market value of organic and inorganic thin-film PV (TFPV) encapsulation will grow from its current value of approximately $370 million in 2012 to nearly $1.2 billion in 2019. This growth corresponds to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 18 percent.
• The market value of flexible glass encapsulation in TFPV is expected to grow from nearly zero today to a value of over $60 million by 2015 and over $225 million by the end of the forecast period in 2019.
• Multilayer barrier films in TVPF encapsulation can grow from just over $30 million today to just over $275 million in 2019.
• The market value of conformally-coated barriers based on ALD can grow to just over $60 million by the middle of the forecast period in 2016 and to over $135 million by 2019.

About NanoMarkets:

NanoMarkets tracks and analyzes emerging market opportunities in solid-state lighting, energy, electronics and other markets created by developments in advanced materials. The firm is a recognized leader in industry analysis and forecasts of this kind and has been covering the thin-film PV space since 2005.

Visit http://www.nanomarkets.net for a full listing of NanoMarkets' reports and other services.

SOURCE NanoMarkets