Netherlands

Some 15 countries are likely to be able to lay claim to the status of being members of solar’s “gigawatt club” in 2019, according to conservative projections from BloombergNEF. Nonetheless, PV suppliers, developers and service providers are always on the lookout for new pockets of growth. To kick off 2020, pv magazine’s global team of correspondents and editors have highlighted 10 “fast-growing” solar markets to evaluate where the opportunities, and potential risks, lie.

The Dutch water management agency plans to install solar panels along both sides of the A37 highway in Drenthe province, as well as on the median strip, to cover 300 hectares in total. The project is part of a plan to build projects on state land, as the domestic PV industry continues to search for alternative surfaces on which to deploy solar.

Dutch utility Liander has published a new list congested areas in the provinces of Flevoland, Friesland, Gelderland, Noord-Holland, and Zuid-Holland. The company said that developers of solar parks who are still waiting for grid connection may have to wait longer for additional grid capacity.

IHS Markit has predicted another year of global solar growth but a peek behind the headline figures shows uncertainty dogging the markets of China and India, two of the most important markets and biggest polluters.

By this time next year we may be able to wave goodbye to that old chestnut about renewables endangering security of supply. Elsewhere, the price of lithium – and the products it goes into – could go either way after tanking this year.

The first part of pv magazine’s review of 2019 considers Q1, when solar early adopter Italy offered an optimistic start to the year by fleshing out its plans for PV but uncertainty still clouded the world’s biggest solar market. The potential for household solar installations to rocket the world over – helped by ever cheaper panels – prompted strategic decisions in the inverter market and analyst expectations were confounded as the cobalt and lithium price plummeted, bringing the EV revolution a big step nearer.

With its app already present in Belgium and the Netherlands, start-up Jedlix is introducing smart charging in France. The solution enables Tesla drivers to optimize their charging strategy.

Dutch transmission system operator Enexis, gas provider Gasunie and oil company NAM are considering diverting excess solar capacity in Drenthe province into hydrogen production. The companies are assessing which wind and solar projects may have been excluded from the grid.

The 8.5 kW pilot project, which was launched in February 2018, will soon be expanded to 50 kW. The Dutch consortium behind the installation eventually plans to expand it to 1 MW and then up to 100 MW at a later stage. The Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) provided financial backing for the project.

Trade body SolarPower Europe’s preliminary statistics suggest this could be the continent’s best year for PV since 2010, with capacity additions set to soar 104% year on year. Spain is leading the way with an expected 4.7 GW of new solar, followed by Germany, with 4 GW.