Gigawatt club continues to grow – 07-2019
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Excerpt from the magazine
Final Thought
Last year was unique for the global solar industry. For the first time, we exceeded the magic installation mark of 100 GW in a single year. Globally, the solar power generation fleet grew over 500 GW, rising from less than 16 GW of solar capacity in 2009 — no small feat! However, unlike the previous […]
Jul 05, 2019
On the road with pv magazine
Where we’ve been: SNEC 2019 The 2019 SNEC show lacked some of the surging crowds of previous years, with the Chinese market cooling somewhat, but it still remains the top global event for cutting edge solar cell and PV module technology. There is some debate as to whether the aluminum oxide p-type or the emerging […]
Jul 05, 2019
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High-powered pathways
Last month’s SNEC exhibition in Shanghai featured a number of discussions about next-next-generation manufacturing. And with a range of technology pathways now available — including heterojunction (HJT), n-type TOPCon and even various tandems on the cell level, as well as bifacial, shingled, paved or ‘closely packed’ configurations on the module level — the materials supply business is becoming ever-more diverse. But for Ethan S. Simon, the CTO of DuPont’s billion-dollar Photovoltaics and Advanced Materials division, the move to HJT may not occur at the speed that many expect.
Jul 05, 2019
Customs arrests rock Intersolar Europe 2019
It’s a highlight of the European solar calendar and a famous PV event globally: the annual Intersolar show, part of The smarter E Europe exhibition and conference in Munich. But 2019’s event may go down with a degree of infamy, as German customs officers executed arrest warrants against two people in a case pertaining to the minimum import price undertaking. While many at the show were unaware of the controversy, pv magazine investigated what went down.
Jul 05, 2019
Policy can spell success or failure for EVs in Europe
Since 2017, several European governments have announced bans on sales of conventional gasoline and diesel vehicles. Countries like France and the United Kingdom have set bans to come into force by 2040, while Norway has set a more ambitious goal of 2025. Raquel Soat, Research Analyst at Navigant, looks at how policy might affect European electric vehicle markets over the coming years.
Jul 05, 2019
Battery recycling is possible
A gloomy atmosphere currently hangs over the lithium-ion supply chain. Stationary battery storage equipment and electromobility offer tremendous opportunities. Yet many experts have concerns about the raw material supply and recycling situation. Christian Hagelüken, the Director of EU government affairs at Umicore, a major recycler and supplier of cobalt, explains his view of the situation.
Jul 05, 2019
Perovskites step out of the labs
Michael van der Gugten, Sales and Marketing Executive at Smit Thermal Solutions, is convinced that perovskite solar cells have reached maturity, and that they are ready to make the step from the lab to production. He is leading the organization of a conference on this topic and expects that the perovskite community, production equipment suppliers and crystalline silicon cell manufacturers will discuss the implementation of perovskite-silicon tandem cells or the production of standalone perovskite modules.
Jul 05, 2019
Transistor transition
In pursuit of a lower levelized cost of energy for the next generation of inverters, some manufacturers have turned to acquiring considerably more expensive semiconductors. While this may sound like a misstep at first, the trick could be pulled off — though not easily, and not always — yet.
Jul 05, 2019
Does ALD live up to assembly line expectations?
As demand for atomic layer deposition equipment spreads among Chinese solar cell manufacturers, experts throughout the industry are sharing their insight on the merits of this emerging manufacturing technology. The numbers they crunch reveal tough competition for incumbent plasma-based deposition techniques. But beyond the hype, does atomic layer deposition truly offer the better deal?
Jul 05, 2019
Change to the cast
Few in the industry predicted the speed at which monocrystalline technology would develop, or the impressive cost reductions it would achieve by 2019. This has left producers of multicrystalline products facing rapidly shrinking market share and struggling to compete on a cost per watt basis. Many are now turning to cast mono processes, essentially creating a monocrystalline, or ‘mono-like’ silicon ingot in a multicrystalline furnace, to reach higher efficiencies and extend equipment lifetimes.
Jul 05, 2019
Award window 2: best of the rest
Select highlights from the ‘balance of systems’ section of the second award window in pv magazine’s revamped award schedule necessarily features a wide array of products and PV applications. From blockchain to storage to monitoring and VPPs, the selection displays the wide array of innovation beyond PV’s building blocks.
Jul 05, 2019
The future is subsidy free
The pitfalls of riding the ‘solar coaster,’ with boom-and-bust cycles dictated by government policies, are well known. Given this, it should come as little surprise that subsidy-free PV in Europe is a theme for which there is a particular appetite. The Future PV Roundtable and The smarter E Europe 2019 event tackled this theme. The first part of the event focused on the utility scale, and the following are some of the key takeaways.
Jul 05, 2019
Unsteady progress of a potential MENA solar superpower
With a combination of scale, a growing population, outstanding irradiation, and available capital, solar PV should be a ‘no brainer’ for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. But early explorations of the technology have soured expectations, and progress has come in fits and starts.
Jul 05, 2019
Tracking in the wind
Extreme wind events are the biggest cause of failure and insurance claims for any PV plant, according to Thorsten Kray, Head of the Building Aerodynamics Department at Institut für Industrieaerodynamik GmbH, Aachen. For structural reasons, single-axis trackers are more prone to the issues than fixed-tilt structures. In this two-part series, pv magazine will examine the ways that wind impacts trackers and what EPCs and investors need to look out for, in addition to outlining a range of approaches from big tracker suppliers that were designed to mitigate wind-related damage.
Jul 05, 2019
Pursuing a 20% bifacial boost
Research on bifacial solar panel performance has moved performance analysis closer to a standardized practice than ever before. More field tests are underway across the United States, and the first waves of data are expected this year. These tests will help standardize a predictive model for bifacial projects that is bankable.
Jul 05, 2019
U.S. opportunities, as seen from above
The United States’ solar market is growing again this year, and it is expected to accelerate further in 2020 and 2021, with heavy construction continuing through the end of 2023. For PV module suppliers, the different market segments require varying strategies for success.
Jul 05, 2019
One step at a time … is not enough in Africa
The African continent often generates impressive solar news and offers new angles on renewable energy systems and integration. The 21st Africa Energy Forum, held between June 11 and 14 in Lisbon, explored the various ways in which solar is being rolled out across the continent. pv magazine offers a country-by-country review of some of the Sub-Saharan markets discussed at the event.
Jul 05, 2019
Install, underneath the radar
While they are often not squarely in the industry’s sights, the number of global markets that are heading toward or beyond the gigawatt level for annual installations continues to grow. Encouragingly, these countries are scattered throughout the world. To provide some insights into some of 2019’s ‘next tier’ markets, pv magazine assembled its global team of editors to find out what can be expected today and in the near future.
Jul 05, 2019
Vietnam’s 2019 commissioning rush
Vietnam had already successfully commissioned 1.5 GW of utility-scale PV at the end of May this year, and there is no sign of this slowing down, with another 2 GW teed up for June 2019. The breakneck speed in development is making Vietnam a powerhouse in the region in installed capacity, even nipping at the heels of Australia. Rystad Energy’s Minh Koi Le looks at the state of play in the Vietnamese solar market.
Jul 05, 2019
Everyone’s talking about higher module prices …
… but at the moment all we are seeing in Central Europe is higher temperatures. The current weather on the continent — with humid, stormy heat in the northeast and damp, cold air in the south and southwest — is not exactly the ideal recipe for brisk activity in the PV industry. On the contrary, following a hectic first quarter, a kind of inertia seems to have taken hold. Project planners and installers are reorienting themselves, assessing what the market will bear and feeling out prices.
Jul 05, 2019
Upwards spiralling
Solar stocks outperformed the broader market in June. Following SNEC — the largest solar conference in the world, in the largest solar market in the world — the Guggenheim Solar ETF (TAN) gained 9.1% vs. the S&P 500 and Dow, which increased 7.2% and 7.7%, respectively.
Jul 05, 2019
Accelerating pace of change
In a 100 GW global PV market, things can move quickly. With the right policy settings in place, well-positioned developers can spring into action and install megawatts of capacity seemingly overnight. While causing headaches for analysts, it is a welcome sign to see how quickly PV technology can be deployed — meeting growing energy needs […]
Jul 05, 2019
