NEA

Yulin, in Shaanxi province has brought the curtain down on around 1 GW of PV projects which are under construction. It had previously been expected the city would add around 5 GW of new solar this year.

The coronavirus outbreak in China could raise solar module prices in the near term as manufacturers have already begun experiencing wafer and solar glass shortages. Production rates are also being affected by an extended new year holiday introduced by the authorities as a measure to deal with the virus, and the requirement workers from infected areas quarantine themselves for two weeks.

Power generation statistics released by the National Energy Administration appear to confirm the nation added 12 GW of solar last month. China also deployed another 41 GW of polluting coal-fired power plants last year.

Storage has long been expected to be the handmaiden of a renewable energy world and its long awaited advances started to finally emerge in the third quarter as researchers posited R&D achievements ranging from potentially potent tungsten disulfide nanotubes to the business case for 10-year solar panels.

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.

On Oct. 29, China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) released cumulative connection data for the first nine months of 2019, when China installed just under 16 GW. This breaks down as 52% distributed generation projects and 48% ground-mount installations. The figure represents a decrease of 54% for the first three quarters compared to 2018. Numbers for the third quarter of 2019 were lower than anticipated in China, confirming what the IHS Markit PV Market Trend Survey for China announced in September. It indicated that a large part of third-quarter PV demand had been postponed to the fourth quarter. Participants still expect a large increase in demand in the fourth quarter, but are increasingly pessimistic about the size of the Chinese market this year.

The China Photovoltaic Industry Association secretary-general has revealed the world’s biggest solar market is unlikely to add more than 30 GW of solar generation capacity this year after just 17.5 GW was installed to the end of October.

TES issued a press release announcing the new facilities that is light on detail but claimed the plants would position it as ‘a leader’ in battery recycling. The company also announced an intent to move into the reuse of spent electric vehicle batteries in commercial and residential applications.

The showpiece 3.6 GW Fengning county project which will offer grid services and back-up power at the 2022 Winter Olympics is part of a 31.15 GW construction pipeline of projects, many of which are set to come into service next year.

According to official statistics produced by the nation’s National Energy Administration, China’s cumulative installed PV generation capacity had reached 185.5 GW at the end of June.