23 December 2009 | By Mark Osborne

Every year we dig deep into the archive of web statistics to rediscover the most popular news stories that have captured the attention of readers in that year. In previous years, one or two stories stand out above all others for the most page views; however, this year more than four stories have been in close contention for the ‘top spot’ and barely a cat’s whisker separates the Number 1 and Number 2 stories.

In what could be a look into the real future battle of thin film, the top story for 2009 was about Nanosolar announcing its volume production plans for its unique CIGS thin film modules.

A certain level of controversy had surrounded Nanosolar as the early hype had not been followed-up with any concrete plans for scaling the technology and demonstrating with an order backlog that the thin film start-up could actually compete with market leader, First Solar.

Significant capacity expansions and a massive backlog in orders put many questions over Nanosolar’s capabilities to rest with this news in September. As with other CIGS hopefuls, 2010 is expected to be the year to watch these companies start or fail to take on First Solar.

A very close second (at time of print) was concerning the news that First Solar was the first PV manufacturer to reach the milestone of sub-US$1.0 per watt manufacturing cost. First Solar is now the benchmark PV manufacturer and project developer, regardless of technology. The CdTe module producer is a perennial top-story generator and is the only company to have more than one story in the Top 10 ranking with stories directly related to the company.

If we posted the Top 20 stories rankings, more stories concerning First Solar would appear and if readers were in any doubt about the popularity of First Solar, then you shouldn’t anymore!

Back in April, iSuppli’s market analyst, Dr. Henning Wicht, made significant waves with his gloomy outlook for the PV industry. Wicht projected PV installations to fall to 3.5GW in 2009, down 32% from 5.2GW installed in 2008.

The concern then was ‘massive overcapacity, plunging prices and weak demand for solar as a consequence of the global economic recession.’ However, things didn’t turn out that way as the market demand recovered and Germany helped fill the deep hole left from the collapse of the Spanish market in late ’08.

Only recently, and not without a few ‘I told you so’ comments all round, Wicht revised his forecast upwards.

In mid-year, another market analyst made a projection and the industry stood up and took notice. Others later followed with the same conclusion but Paula Mints from Navigant Consulting was the first to observe that First Solar could become the Number 1 PV producer in 2009.

Another market research firm took the Number 5 spot with its calculations on another set of rankings, this time VLSI Research’s Top 10 PV cell equipment suppliers list for 2008.

As far as we can tell, this was the first time such a list has been compiled and with the recent news of the merger between Meyer Burger and 3S, we already know there will be major changes in the rankings for 2009.

Ranked 6th is another story from iSuppli. This time the story concerns the FUD (Fear Uncertainty & Doubt) over the size and affect of overcapacity in the PV supply chain.

However, less than five months later, news from many sectors of the industry noted time and again that modules and inverters were in short supply. The year will probably go down as one of a ‘game of two halves.’

Yet another well-known market research firm, Photon Consulting, caught readers interest with the analysis of market conditions that the industry faced in the first half of the year and which companies were in a better position than others to ‘survive.’

Was First Solar mentioned as a survivor, you may ask? Of course it was, along with LDK Solar, Q-Cells, REC, SolarWorld, SunPower, Suntech, and Yingli Green. However, recent news concerning the liquidity issues at LDK Solar makes this one to watch. Interestingly, Q-Cells and REC have had a rough year with many issues to overcome. Perhaps the story on this one is still ongoing?

The story about the planned UK FiT, ranked 8th most popular story for 2009, is actually the surprise entrant in my opinion. After all, there isn’t much really written about the solar industry in the UK, basically because there isn’t much going on when compared to the major markets. Could its popularity be because there was actually something written about the solar sector in the UK, which caught our readers interest? Surely not because our Publisher actually wrote it!

First Solar appears again at Number 9 with the news from iSuppli that it is gaining market share and is the only PV manufacturer to do so in 2009. This news was relayed in September, long after Navigant’s Paula Mints had seen the trend.

In what can now be seen as a particular trend of popular reader behaviour, the 10th most read story of 2009 concerned the market data report on the 2008 PV market, published by the EPIA. Perhaps because it harked back to a good year, while the market was barely recovering from a cold winter and even colder sales, readers felt a little warmer from its message that ’08 had indeed been very good year.

PV-TECH’S TOP 10 STORIES OF 2009 – Photovoltaics International.

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