Employment

Solar industry expansion is racing ahead but shortages of skilled labor could derail progress. Long-term solutions are required to support further growth. Benoit Ribeaud, partner at Everoze, explores how a workforce bottleneck is affecting the solar industry and calls for more action to alleviate recruitment pressure.

As solar module prices continue to drop to record lows, amid global oversupply, questions are being asked about how much inventory is sitting in European warehouses and when normal levels will return. With numerous estimates and assumptions swirling, EUPD Research’s Markus A.W. Hoehner and Ali Arfa have looked closely at the numbers in an attempt to provide a transparent view of the issue.

The PV industry in Southeast Asia has come a long way since guest author Ragna Schmidt-Haupt, partner at Everoze, reported on solar financing innovation in the region more than a decade ago. In this article, she outlines five factors for success, the newest of which has the potential to become a game changer, and not only in Southeast Asia.

French researchers have identified a number of potential social issues that may arise as North Africa develops its significant hydrogen potential, while the European Commission has released the details of its pilot auction for European renewable hydrogen production.

With electric vehicles (EVs) changing the face of motoring, Dover Fueling Solutions’ Lise-Lotte Nordholm considers what the service stations of the future could look like.

Compared to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) signed by Joe Biden’s administration in the US, the EU’s approach to establishing solar manufacturing appears slow and lacking in clarity. In this blog post, I will explore the EU’s renewable energy policy, specifically its emphasis on solar manufacturing, and evaluate whether Brussels is doing enough to establish a European solar supply chain.

The growth of European rooftop solar continues this year, with innovative companies raising capital to develop the market. It’s an encouraging trend with the potential to accelerate rooftop solar adoption. pv magazine correspondent Valerie Thompson takes a closer look.

Promising to replace fossil fuel jobs with an identical number of clean energy roles in coal-dependent communities is overly simplistic and ignores the fact that communities need to be brought onside with credible expectations of better-quality employment.

While few can doubt the emission-reduction might of solar; forced- and child labor in clean power supply chains is becoming a hot issue, which is why the EU is mulling a ban on goods proven to have traces of such labor practices. Diana Zadorozhna, a partner at renewables consultancy Everoze, looks at what companies can do to prepare for forced-labor legislation.

Solar module prices continued to fall in January, and there is no end in sight. The main drivers impacting prices are lower shipping rates from China and the further recovery of the euro-US dollar exchange rate. Martin Schachinger, of pvXchange, expects other effects, such as slowly falling energy costs or polysilicon and wafer prices – which are in freefall – to further strengthen the trend in the coming months.