More than just a number – 03-2018
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Excerpt from the magazine
From the ashes
It is hardly revelatory to write that solar markets can rise, fall, and rise again. Stuttering starts, vertiginous expansions, foreseen collapses, and frustratingly unfulfilled potential could accurately describe perhaps 80% of most noteworthy solar markets around the globe. But two PV markets have been consistent in their inconsistency: Turkey and South Africa. Both nations are […]
Mar 13, 2018
Market up, prices flat
Module price index: The scarcity of low-cost multicrystalline modules in the “mainstream” class, evident since the beginning of the year, continues. The Trump decision in the USA has not yet had any visible impact, such as increasing module volumes for the European market due to lower demand on the other side of the pond.
Mar 13, 2018
Vulnerable solar markets, and what makes them tick
Part IV: In 2001 China had a 1% share of global shipments and market demand of just 5 MW. By 2007, China’s share of global shipments was 21%, and in 2017 its shipment share is expected to be ~53%, and that’s not counting manufacturing expansions outside of China. In 2010 demand for PV deployment was 85 MW, then in 2011, following the introduction of its FIT, domestic demand for PV deployment shot up to 2.9 GW.
Mar 13, 2018
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Price decline on pause
IHS Markit analysis: The price of lithium-ion battery modules has been falling each year since IHS Markit began tracking this market, with average prices for stationary storage applications falling by nearly 70% between 2012 and 2017. This has been the principal enabler of a strong pick-up in demand for battery storage, writes Sam Wilkinson, IHS Markit’s Associate Director – Solar and Energy Storage.
Mar 13, 2018
Running low at the top
Top Runner Program: China has not only become the largest country for high-efficiency cell and module capacity thanks to the Top Runner Program. It’s also the world’s largest demand country for high-efficiency modules. This shows that the Top Runner Program has brought a certain level of effectiveness to the high-efficiency trend.
Mar 13, 2018
License to build
Turkey’s PV market: Turkey racked up impressive solar PV growth in 2017, installing 1.79 GW of new photovoltaic capacity. But is this growth sustainable? And what is expected to happen in 2018 and the years that follow? pv magazine sets the scene across all the relevant segments of the Turkish PV market.
Mar 13, 2018
Renewed optimism
South African market: Key questions about South Africa’s promising PV market have largely gone unanswered for the past several years, amid political wrangling over the future national energy mix, and the mismanagement of troubled state utility Eskom. But now – following the recent ousting of former president Jacob Zuma, who has long championed costly investments in nuclear capacity – the ruling African National Congress (ANC) is positioned to take a fresh look at the government’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP).
Mar 13, 2018
A watershed year
Belgium market update: Once among Europe’s leaders in solar PV deployment, with more than 1 GW of capacity added in its peak year of 2011, Belgium’s market lost momentum following the abrupt closure of generous subsidy programs. In recent years, driven by its residential PV segment, the country has experienced a solar comeback, which became particularly prominent in the year just passed.
Mar 13, 2018
Europe takes a second look
M&A and secondary markets: With the pace of solar growth in Europe slowing, activity in the secondary solar market appears to have picked up, funneling solar assets into the hands of a shrinking few. Such consolidation of the market has manifest in increased mergers and acquisitions activity, particularly in the O&M space. Is this new PV landscape an inevitability, a one-off, or simply cyclical?
Mar 13, 2018
Two sides to tracking
Bifacial trackers: Solar tracker makers are bringing specially designed models to the market in order to embrace the coming wave of bifacial panels. While bifacial panels may capture up to 10% more light than monofacial panels, single-axis trackers typically add 25% to that bifacial gain, resulting in a roughly estimated 12.5% gain from the two technologies combined, compared with fixed installs using monofacial panels.
Mar 13, 2018
Big energy steps in
Off-grid electrification: The International Energy Agency estimates that off-grid energy systems will receive 70% of the nearly $400 billion in investments required to provide energy access to the 1.1 billion people living without electricity. Utilities, oil, and gas firms and other large energy companies are increasingly taking notice of the opportunities in off-grid electrification through investments and acquisitions.
Mar 13, 2018
Troubleshooting efforts in PV plants
Plant maintenance: Troubleshooting in solar plants requires not only trying to find a diagnosis of why the performance ratio is reduced, but also to localize faulty modules. John Davies, Operations Director – Solar and Energy Storage at operations and maintenance firm Cobalt Energy, shares with pv magazine his thoughts on fault detection, troubleshooting, and thermography in the field.
Mar 13, 2018
Refining the process
CdTe modules: At its production facility in Germany’s ‘Solar Valley,’ Calyxo is producing CdTe modules at production costs moving towards $0.20/W, many of which are destined for repowering PV plants across Europe. pv magazine caught up with Calyxo CTO and COO Michael Bauer, to discuss the company’s latest developments.
Mar 13, 2018
A multi-layered battle
Lamination innovation: The ongoing ambition of laminator manufacturers is to develop machines that can deliver high output through a faster lamination process, while simultaneously reducing their footprint by combining several machines into one. However, an in-depth process know-how is essential in order to produce defect-free modules. Which players possess such knowledge?
Mar 13, 2018
From the top
Polysilicon and wafer manufacturers ranking: PV demand reached record levels in 2017, with global installations surpassing 100 GW for the first time ever. Few in the industry expected deployments to hit this level, piling the pressure on to the supply chain. Armed with polysilicon and wafer manufacturer ranking data supplied by IHS Markit, pv magazine delves into the past year’s upstream landscape.
Mar 13, 2018
Let’s mitigate LID & LeTID!
Cell degradation: LID in p-type monocrystalline PERC cells has caused serious issues in PV plant performance. Now, it can be prevented with regeneration processes or by replacing boron with gallium. The cause of LeTID in multicrystalline PERC cells, meanwhile, is still a mystery, but researchers have proposed an industrial solution to address it.
Mar 13, 2018
Raising issues, raising the bar
Quality and Future PV Roundtables 2018: A look ahead to this year’s packed pv magazine Quality and Future PV Roundtables schedule reveals an exciting program, a couple of new concepts, and a continuation of the format that has served the industry since its launch in 2015.
Mar 13, 2018
Knowing the cost
O&M costs: Solar PV plants remain a relatively low-maintenance means of electricity production, but as PPAs strike record low after record low across the globe, the issue of profitability and competitiveness becomes starker. So the question arises: How can O&M activities maintain their affordability when certain costs, such as labor, are on the rise?
Mar 13, 2018
The sun shines brighter if the risks don’t cloud it
Finance in developing countries: Economics teaches that capital flows from where it is in surplus to where it is in demand. But that is not the case with renewable energy. The biggest pots of institutional capital in advanced economies are not shifting to developing ones. It is time to take a hard look and develop solutions that resolve this anomaly.
Mar 13, 2018
Europe’s battery opportunity
Interview: The U.K.’s recently launched Faraday Institution aims to accelerate the commercialization of bespoke battery technologies developed and produced in the U.K. and designed for all types of applications. The institution’s Interim Director Peter Littlewood discusses with pv magazine the excellent opportunities facing Europe’s battery landscape, and why it is vital for the continent to act now.
Mar 13, 2018
Synergy or conflict?
EVs and solar: As the electric vehicle market begins to take off, many are hoping that this technology will be complementary to solar PV. And while the potential is there, a closer look shows that there are many unanswered questions, and there is still a lot of work to be done.
Mar 12, 2018
Behind the meter
Residential & commercial storage: Since 2015 the annually installed capacity of behind-the-meter energy storage has grown almost three times (from 110 MWh to about 300 MWh in 2017) as the residential market continues to pick up momentum and C&I installations are starting to come to fruition after initial hype. Based on the analysis conducted in our European Market Monitor Report, we foresee a similar growth trend continuing in the future.
Mar 12, 2018
