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REC Annual Report 2011
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revenues in 2011. Several of the long term contracts were terminated
during 2011. Geographically 78 percent of external sales revenues in
RECWafer came fromAsia, 18 percent from Europe while four percent
came from the rest of the world.
REC Solar has in 2011 expanded deliveries to existing customers and
developed new customer relationships in line with the module volume
growth during the year. The customer base of REC Solar counted
approximately 140 of the leading system integrators, installers and
distributors in major markets such as Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and
the US. The top five external customers accounted for approximately
27 percent of the sales revenue in 2011, compared to approximately
29 percent in 2010. Geographically 86 percent of external sales in
REC Solar came from Europe, seven percent from the US while
seven percent came from the rest of the world.
REC continued to build brand recognition in existing and newmarkets
through a significant presence at a number of the largest solar
conferences and international fairs, hosting partner visits to the
Singapore facility, and a number of other regional market activities.
RECmodules ranked first in the 2011 Photon module field performance
test, producing six percent more energy on average than competing
modules. The one year long comparative study measures energy yield
and is conducted by Photon Laboratory. REC’s multicrystalline modules
outperformed 45 different types of modules, including thin film and
monocrystalline products.
The REC Partner Program, which was launched in 2010 to support and
reward market channel relationships, has been well received and several
new partners have joined in across the globe. The key benefits include a
dedicated portal, where partners can track and trace orders and gain
direct online access to commercial documents and product data,
marketing resources, training material, technical support, displays
and an online shop, all in local languages.
Cost reductions
REC has in 2011 continued to focus on cost reductions and quality
improvements across all business units. REC set out cost targets for
2011 at a Capital Markets Day held in Singapore in November 2010.
With the exception of RECWafer, REC reached the cost targets set
out for the fourth quarter 2011, already in the second quarter 2011.
Since the third quarter 2010, REC Silicon has reduced the cash
production cost for FBR polysilicon by approximately 40 percent to
belowUSD 14 per kg in the fourth quarter 2011. The cost reduction
has mainly been achieved through improved process stability.
Significant improvements with respect to both cost and quality have
been made at the plants both at Herøya and in Glomfjord in 2011.
The cost of producing modules in Singapore has been reduced by
approximately 30 percent since third quarter 2010. In the fourth quarter
2011 the full module cost was 101 Eurocents/wattwith a cash cost,
including overhead, of 86 Eurocents/watt. The cost reduction has mainly
been achieved through increased production volume, higher yield, and
improved cell efficiency.
Beyond 2011, operational performance is expected to continue to
improve at all facilities, and REC will continue to seek cost reductions
and product value enhancement through development and rapid
implementation of new technologies. Some of these new technologies
will however require further investments to be realized. See specific
2012 cost targets in the section ‘Outlook’ on page 23.
Technology, research, and development
The strategic objective of profitable growth for REC is only attainable
with cost efficiency and leading product performance. REC therefore
deploys significant resources into developing and industrializing product
and process innovations along the entire solar energy value chain.
REC has introduced a series of innovations to the solar industry, and
the company continues to build on an IPR portfolio counting around
50 patents granted and approximately 240 patents pending. Key
patents and patent applications cover REC’s production technologies
for silane gas, Siemens reactors, fluidized bed reactors and polysilicon
deposition, ingot crystallization, wafer sawing, washing, singulation,
and REC’s future solar cell and module processes and designs.
REC Silicon’s technology efforts in 2011 contributed to increased
productivity of the silane process and of the fluidized bed reactor
process. The program for the next generation FBR reactor (FBR-B)
has demonstrated equal control and operability as the first generation
fluidized bed reactors (FBR-A), and the continuing efforts are directed
towards demonstrating electronic grade quality of silicon granulate
produced with the FBR-B prototype reactor.
RECWafer has development programs for 2000 kg crystallization
furnaces (C2000) and for casting of partially monocrystalline ingots
(Monocast). Tests within the C2000 program confirm that this
technology has potential for a step change in both productivity and
wafer quality going forward. Production scale tests in the Monocast
program demonstrate that ingots and consequently wafers with
distinctly better performance than obtained from the existing process
with casting of multi-crystalline ingots can be achieved. REC has
developed proprietary methods that increase the monocrystalline
fraction of such ingots above what appears available in the market today.
REC Solar’s in-house solar cell production achieved average cell
efficiency above 16.8 percent for all production lines combined by the
end of 2011, in line with the cell efficiency improvement roadmap. Full
scale tests combining backside passivation technology and other key
elements of REC Solar’s 2012 18 percent cell efficiency program
demonstrated their capability of contributing to increased cell efficiency.
The improved wafer quality of Monocast wafers can also contribute
towards reaching the 2012 cell efficiency targets. REC is currently in
final stages of process development while preparing for investments in
manufacturing roll-out, and evaluating how to prioritize these different
technology upgrades in time.
REC Solar’s photovoltaic modules were measured to deliver the best
energy yield compared to all other tested modules in the independent
2011 Photon Magazine field test for the full year. The modules from
REC produced six percent more electricity than the average module
in the test during the course of the year. Manufactured in Singapore,
Report from the Board of Directors