Markets

With tenders coming in for large-scale projects, and decade-old generous FIT programs being phased out, new opportunities and challenges are facing Japan’s PV players. Izumi Kaizuka from Tokyo-based analyst RTS Corporation sets out the major market trends for 2019.

In December, pv magazine met SolaX Power president Li Xinfu and his team at the company’s headquarters in sprawling Hangzhou, in Zhejiang province. The region is a hotspot for the Chinese PV industry and SolaX belongs to the cutting edge of Chinese inverter and residential battery manufacturers.

Aiming to localize production across the electric vehicle value chain, the government wants to support battery manufacturing at a gigawatt-scale. The initial focus will be on large-scale module and pack assembly plants in the new fiscal year, followed by integrated cell manufacturing by 2021-22.

Motivated by steeply declining cost curves, leading utilities are building solar portfolios around the globe. The latest statistics show the cumulative capacity of the biggest utility-scale solar plant owners topped 18 GW at the end of last year, with power companies in China, the U.S. and India to the fore.

Almost 5% of the Chinese solar glass manufacturer’s stock will be issued in a bid to generate $167 million towards the cost of two fabs planned in Guangxi next year. Xinyi also wants to expand its successful project development business.

The Chinese panel maker is already producing bifacial half cut modules at its new Anhui fab after the completion of an initial 2.5 GW phase of operations. And the company president confirmed Longi is on track for 45 GW of mono wafer and ingot production capacity next year.

Despite the small figure, last year saw the nascent Norwegian PV market expand 29% from the previous year. The country’s cumulative installed PV capacity reached approximately 68 MW at the end of December.

The electric carmaker has signed 12-month credit agreements with three of China’s ‘Big Four’ lenders as well as the development bank for Shanghai as it aims to get its lower-priced Model 3s rolling off the production line by the end of the year.

Multilateral lender hopes to leverage $212 million more from the private sector as falling solar development costs make renewables more attractive. A solar plant with a 50 MW capacity in Feni will be one of the first to benefit from the new funds.

At the Solar Power Summit in Brussels today, the industry group said it is preparing to launch a supply-side oriented industrial policy for the PV sector in Europe. The manufacturing sector on the continent has been hard hit since 2012, and has been buffeted by a range of unfavorable policy decisions.