Magazine Archive 11 – 2023 | Tipping point

  It was only in June, at the Intersolar Europe trade show, that the extent of the oversupply situation facing the global solar market in 2023 became clear. Following a wave of multi-gigawatt capacity expansions to existing manufacturers in China, along with new entrants and a host of manufacturers adding lines and new facilities in […]

The Invesco Solar exchange traded fund (ETF) TAN significantly underperformed relative to the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) stock indexes in September. Jesse Pichel, of Roth Capital Partners, puts this down to oversupply in the United States residential sector.

Competition with the Chinese clean technology powerhouse will be difficult but protectionism is folly, argues Gerard Reid, a co-founder and partner at Alexa Capital.

Rapid growth in energy storage installations and a boom in small scale solar drove revenue to a record high in 2022, reports Cormac Gilligan, a director of cleantech at S&P Global.

Land-use constraints in China, inventory pile-up in Europe, and negative sentiment in Brazil make for a mixed outlook while the specter of protectionism looms across the globe.

Manufacturing capacity has been ramping up so quickly that even impressive installation growth cannot keep pace. Molly Morgan, senior research analyst at UK-based research firm Exawatt, explores the relationship between PV supply and demand and assesses the likelihood of overproduction.

Despite gigawatt gains for installed generation capacity, negative sentiment and local government regulation threaten progress in South Korea. At the same time, agrivoltaic development and a pioneering approach from the industry are offering grounds for optimism, according to Qcells’ Ian Clover.

Taiwan has big plans to ensure its energy independence and progress toward net-zero by 2050. Plans for new solar and offshore wind projects are taking shape and the need for energy storage to manage a grid with a growing share of intermittent renewables is being recognized. For the moment, however, many of these plans are on hold, with Taiwan’s government apparently nervous about making big moves ahead of elections scheduled for January 2024.

From integrating solar and batteries to leading the charge on digitalization, businesses operating on the technological frontier can be found in Shenzhen, China. The southern city is becoming more pivotal to the PV industry, as pv magazine publisher Eckhart K. Gouras discovered on his most recent visit to China.

Oversupply may be calamitous for module pricing but there is a well of ambition within a distribution sector than can still see opportunity on the other side of a crisis.