Scatec wants to double size of project pipeline

Norwegian PV developer Scatec Solar has announced plans to more than double its global installed capacity to 3.5 GW by the end of 2021, although it should be noted that for Scatec, “installed capacity” includes projects under construction.

During a market update delivered in Oslo on Wednesday, Scatec chief executive Raymond Carlsen announced: “This year we deliver on our 1.5 GW growth target, and we now move forward with a target of more than doubling installed capacity by [the] end [of] 2021.”

The 1.5 GW target that is being delivered currently stands at 322 MW of installed projects with a further 394 MW due to come online by the end of the year. Scatec’s Chief Financial Officer Mikkel Tørud told pv magazine it also includes a further 698 MW of projects which are due to come online at the end of 2019 and which will be under construction this year, in Egypt, South Africa and Mozambique.

The futility of taking on domestic manufacturers in two of the world’s biggest solar markets is underscored by the concession “Scatec Solar is active in most significant emerging markets except China and India”, in the section of this week's market update outlining the company’s plans for international growth.

Instead, the update implies Scatec has ambitious plans for Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan and Vietnam, as well as Iran – in line with predicted market sizes based on GTM Research, Enerdata and OECD statistics – though how the threat of U.S. sanctions on companies working in the latter nation, following the collapse of the Iran nuclear deal, would affect the developer’s plans is not made clear.

Scatec claims to have a longer term 4 GW pipeline worth NOK1.5 million ($183,000) per MW to back up its 3.5 GW ambition, with 1.6 GW in Africa, 1.1 GW in Europe and central Asia, 760 MW in south east Asia and 469 MW in that much-vaunted Latin American market, suggesting staff in the company’s Recife regional project development team have a bit of work on.

Although undoubtedly a success in European terms, and rightly proud of their status as a top ten (joint tenth) global developer, the Scatec figures also illustrate how far ahead the big players are, with the Norwegian company’s current – actual and under construction – 2 GW pipeline dwarfed by GCL New Energy’s more than 12 GW, First Solar’s 9-plus GW and Canadian Solar’s 8 GW.