Gerry Fine speaks...

Schott's largest business unit is solar. He agrees that price/performance is not there yet. 4 segments: off-grid, residential, commercial, industrial. CSP is a big part of the business-thermal, because heat can be stored. Thermal systems are at 6-8% ROI, low risk, 20 year old tech.

PV: thin film and crystalline. It is very hard to differentiate. Cost/W differences are small and arguable. Reliability of supply and product are key--low risk important in the market.

Germany, largest market for solar in the world, has the solar flux of Alaska...due to subsidies and feed in tarrif. But that tarrif is going away.

Clearly a world-wide market dip, FIT reduced in Germany, cap on subsidies in Spain, and slowly developing American market.

What do the customers really need? Solar is expensive and non-competitive without subsidies. BP stated last week that solar power will never be competitive for BP. PV shows a 78% experience curve. DRAMS are 62%, LCDs are 65%, Limestone mining is 78%...not good enough. Roadmaps will keep industry on that curve, but how to make a discontinuous jump? Needed: order of magnitude type improvements in Si cost, efficiency, designs, radical integrated manufacturing. This is the conventional path. But solar must be much better than grid BECAUSE to use PV, other stuff needs to happen:

• Smart grids for fluctuating, distributed inputs
• Metering and Ren Port. Stds
• Storage
• Consistent federal policy
• Installation process
• Credit

78% isn't good enough.