From pv magazine Global

A new IEA-PVPS report says that PV systems need to take on additional grid support tasks traditionally managed by conventional power plants to ensure the stable operation of electrical power systems throughout the world. The Task 14 report ties up IEA-PVPS’ work on the potential of distributed solar and PV hybrid systems to provide frequency-related grid services.

It says that existing PV systems already have the technical capabilities to provide various frequency-related grid services, such as the reduction of active power generation in cases of overfrequency and, when in combination with battery energy storage systems (BESS), the automatic increase of their output in case of underfrequency.

The report predicts that the provision of such fast-frequency services by PV systems, with or without batteries, will become “very important in the near future,” particularly in supply areas which are dominated by inverter coupled generators.

It also features five case studies – two in Japan and one each in Austria, Germany and Italy – that cover the regulations, grid codes and frameworks that influence the operation of power systems in the region.

The report says each case study “clearly demonstrated that PV systems solely, or especially in combination with BESS, are able to provide different types of frequency-related grid services.” It adds that while the results of the case studies are promising, “further research and demonstration projects are necessary, especially for implementation of these frequency related services, which come along with grid-forming inverters.”

Gunter Arnold, one of the authors of the report, says that the study represents a major step forward in recognizing and using PV systems for frequency-related grid services. He says that the report’s insights will be crucial for policymakers, grid operators, and the renewable energy sector as the world moves toward a more sustainable energy future.

IEA-PVPS also recently wrapped up its 13th task, with the publication of a report on the optimization of bifacial PV tracking systems.

From pv magazine Global

A research team has determined that covering the world’s highways with solar roofs could generate 17,578 TWh per year, which is more than 60% of global electricity consumption in 2023.

Their study, titled “Roofing Highways With Solar Panels Substantially Reduces Carbon Emissions and Traffic Losses,” was recently published in the journal Earth’s Future. It explores the potential to install solar panels above highways and major roads.

With more than 3.2 million km of highways worldwide, the researchers calculated the costs and benefits of constructing a solar panel network using polycrystalline solar panels with a 250 W capacity. The analysis found that covering highways with solar panels could generate more than four times the annual energy output of the United States and offset 28.78% of current CO2 emissions, while also reducing global traffic deaths by 10.8%.

“This really surprised me,” said Ling Yao, a remote sensing scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the study’s lead author. “I didn’t realize that highways alone could support the deployment of such large photovoltaic installations, generating more than half of the world’s electricity demand, and greatly easing the pressure to reduce global carbon emissions.”

The researchers also identified regions such as eastern China, Western Europe, and the US East Coast as the most ideal for deployment, despite challenges related to setup and maintenance costs. Yao noted the importance of pilot programs to demonstrate the practicality of this concept.

The research team consisted of academics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University and Chinese Academy of Geosciences, all located in Beijing, as well as New York’s Columbia University.

From pv magazine Global

Jera Nex, the renewables unit of Japanese power generator Jera, has acquired two U.S. solar projects totaling 395 MW from Lightsource bp. The projects are the 300 MW Oxbow solar array in Louisiana and the 95 MW Happy installation in Arkansas.

Both sites are in commercial operation. The Oxbow site has long term power purchase agreements (PPA) with corporate customers including eBay, while the Happy project was a long-term PPA with Conway Corp, a city-owned utility system in Conway, Arkansas.

The transaction, executed in partnership with Jera Americas, has already secured regulatory approvals. As part of the agreement, Lightsource bp will continue to provide asset management and maintenance services to Jera Nex.

The acquisition is Jera Nex’s first since the company launched in April and marks its first step into the U.S. solar market. The London-based company claims to have a current portfolio of more than 3 GW of solar, onshore and offshore wind and battery storage projects.

“This first transaction since our recent launch is an indication of our ambitious plans to scale onshore and offshore renewables for a sustainable future; we hope to build a broader onshore renewables portfolio in the U.S. and globally,” said Richard Scott, VP for development and construction onshore at Jera Nex.

From pv magazine Global

Researchers at the University of Texas in Austin have explored the formation of polarons by examining the properties of halide perovskites.

Halide perovskites are used in applications such as photovoltaics due to their optoelectric properties. In the research paper “Topological polarons in halide pervoskites,” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists used supercomputers Lonestar6 and Frontera from the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) to analyze these properties at the individual atom level.

The team developed EPW, an open-source Fortran and message-passing interface code that calculates properties related to electron-phonon interaction. The EPW code specializes in studying how electrons interact with vibrations in the lattice of a solid, which causes the formation of polarons.

“We found that electrons form localized, narrow wave packets, which are known as polarons,” Feliciano Giustino, one of the paper’s lead authors, told TACC. “These ‘lumps of charge’ – the quasiparticle polarons – endow perovskites with peculiar properties.”

“These polarons show very intriguing patterns. The atoms rotate around the electron and form vortices that had never been observed before. We suspect that this strange vortex structure prevents the electron from going back to the unexcited energy level,” Giustino explained. “This vortex is a protected topological structure in the halide perovskite lattice material that remains in place for a long time and allows the electrons to flow without losing energy.”

In the research paper, the scientists add that polarons take many different forms in halide perovskites, including small polarons, large polarons and charge density waves.

“We find that these emergent quasiparticles support topologically nontrivial phonon fields with quantized topological charge, making them nonmagnetic analog of the helical Bloch points found in magnetic skyrmion lattices,” the researchers said. “Our findings suggest that halide perovskites may be regarded as a class of quantum materials where electron-phonon couplings replace the traditional electron–electron interactions of correlated electron systems.”

From pv magazine Global

Global PV tracker shipments grew by 28% in 2023 to 92 GWdc, according to Wood Mackenzie’s Global solar PV tracker market share’ report 2024.

WoodMac’s analysis found the top 10 vendors accounted for 90% of the global market share. For the ninth consecutive year, US-based manufacturers Nextracker and Array Technologies took first and second place, with the former extending its lead position with 20% annual growth.

GameChange Solar, another US manufacturer, made it to third in the rankings for the first time thanks to 55% year-on-year growth. Together, the three companies accounted for more than 50% of global tracker shipments and 90% of the US market.

The US is the world’s largest individual market for PV trackers. It experienced 10% year-on-year growth last year, to over 37 GWdc of shipments. WoodMac says the market was buoyed by Inflation Reduction Act incentives which kickstarted construction for many new large-scale projects across the country.

In contrast, China’s tracker market fell to 4.3 GWdc in 2023. WoodMac says Chinese manufacturers experienced much higher demand for fixed-tilt products, as low installation costs were a main drivers for developers in China. Despite the drop in demand, Chinese manufacturers TrinaTracker and Archtech climbed into the global top six of tracker shipments, as they expanded their regional presence in the Middle East, central Asia and Latin America.

The largest European market was Spain, representing more than 50% of the continent’s demand. Spanish manufacturers PV Hardware, Solar Steel, Soltec and Axial all feature in the global top ten of tracker shippers.

Engineers from the University of Michigan have developed a new algorithm capable of designing optical multilayer film structures for applications, including solar cells.

OptoGPT (Opto Generative Pretrained Transformer) harnesses the computer architecture underpinning ChatGPT to work backward from desired optical properties to the material structure that can provide them.

The algorithm produces designs for multilayer film structures, consisting of stacked thin layers of different materials, reportedly within 0.1 seconds. Well-designed multilayer structures can maximize light absorption in a solar cell, and can also optimize design in other optical component manufacturers, such as telescopes. On average, OptoGPT designs contain six fewer layers than previous models, according to its creators. This means that its designs are easier to manufacture.

“Designing these structures usually requires extensive training and expertise as identifying the best combination of materials, and the thickness of each layer, is not an easy task,” said L. Jay Guo, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Michigan. The model operates by treating materials at a certain thickness as words and encoding the associated optical properties as inputs. It seeks out correlations between these “words” and predicts the next word to create a “phrase” that achieves the desired property. “In a sense, we created artificial sentences to fit the existing model structure,” said Guo.

Guo is the corresponding author of “OptoGPT: A foundation model for inverse design in optical multilayer thin film structures,” a research paper that was recently published in Opto-Electronic Advances.

The paper says OptoGPT can “effectively deal with the non-trivial inverse design problem in multilayer structure … Combined with many proposed techniques, our model can unify the inverse design under different types of input targets under different incident angle/polarization, be versatile to different types of structures, as well as facilitate the fabrication process by providing diversity and flexibility.”

The researchers acknowledged that even though they used a large-scale dataset with 10 million samples for training, the dataset “only covers a small fraction of the expansive and complex design space associated with optical multilayer thin film structures.”

They said that because of the limitations in the training dataset, OptoGPT might not identify designs that fall outside the sampled design space.

“Close collaboration across multiple research groups is needed to obtain a better model for a more general and better photonic inverse design that expands to more complicated structures,” concluded the researchers.

The Canadian government’s OHPA program, which incentivizes homeowners to switch from heating their homes with oil to a heat pump, is now available to citizens of the eastern province of Prince Edward Island.

The OPHA program offers up to CAD 15,000 ($10,914) per eligible low- to medium-income household. The funds can be used to install heat pumps, alongside additional measures such as switching to electric water heaters, supplemental electric resistance heaters, electrical upgrades, and the safe removal of oil tanks.

The program began delivery in Prince Edward Island after an agreement was signed between the federal and provincial governments. It is estimated that 5,000 grants have been issued to applicants in the area.

The federal government also has co-delivery arrangements in place for the OPHA program with Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and British Columbia. It said it “looks forward to co-delivering the program with other provinces and territories soon.”

As of July 5, a total of 7,403 heat pumps have been installed under the plan nationally, with 10,568 Canadian households having received upfront payments.

“Canadians should be able to save on energy bills by heating and cooling their homes more efficiently,” said Bobby Morrissey, member of parliament for Egmont, Prince Edward Island. “This is especially true in Atlantic Canada, where many are facing high energy costs … That’s why this federal government is helping Canadians switch from expensive home heating oil to lower-cost and lower-emission heat pumps through the Oil to Heat Pump Affordability program. This next step in the program is a win-win: it will provide even more support for low-to-medium-income Islanders who are looking to reduce their energy bills while also reducing pollution.”

In jurisdictions where OHPA agreements are not yet in place, oil-heated households can still apply for up to CAD 10,000 in federal funding to make the switch to heat pumps. Government estimates suggest that homeowners who switch from an oil furnace to a cold-climate heat pump could save approximately CAD 1,500 to CAD 4,500 per year on their home energy bills, depending on their province or territory.

Earlier this month, the province of British Columbia launched a rebate scheme for homeowners that install rooftop solar and battery energy storage systems, offering up to CAD 10,000.

From pv magazine Global

Global provider of benchmark price assessments Platts, a division of S&P Global Commodity Insights, has launched an independent daily spot market price assessment for solar panels in the US, Europe and Asia.

“Modules are increasingly commoditized. Transactions occur on a daily basis and there are multiple stakeholders involved,” Annalisa Jeffries, Global Head, Electricity Power Pricing at S&P Global Commodity Insights, told pv magazine. “The people who would benefit are the suppliers, utilities, and project developers. In our conversations with solar module market participants, they have expressed a demand for more accurate, specific detailed pricing information on solar modules.”

According to Jeffries, daily assessments enable users to track price movements as they happen. “Solar panel prices have been very volatile with prices changing frequently, hence daily updates are key,” she added. “Weekly prices would not allow for changes to be tracked as accurately.”

The tool currently includes assessments on TOPCon solar modules. “But it will adapt to emerging technologies as they become more mainstream,” Jeffries stated. “We do track the price spreads and outright prices of other PV technologies versus TOPcon.”

It will offer daily price assessments reflecting the value of bifacial solar modules procured for both commercial and industrial and utility-scale projects across six categories:

• Platts Solar Module free on board (FOB) China 5-50 MW, reflecting 10-30 days FOB to Shanghai
• Platts Solar Module FOB China 50-100 MW, reflecting 10-30 days forward FOB to Shanghai
• Platts Solar Module delivered duty paid (DDP) Europe 5-50 MW, reflecting 28-70 days forward delivery to Rotterdam
• Platts Solar Module DDP Europe 50-100 MW, reflecting 28-70 days forward delivery to Rotterdam
• Platts Solar Module DDP US 5-50 MW, reflecting 28-60 days forward for delivery to the US East Coast
• Platts Solar Module DDP US 50-100 MW, reflecting 28-60 days forward for delivery to the US East Coast

Platts will publish the six individual solar module prices alongside the Platts Global Solar Module Marker, a daily average of the six individual assessments, to provide a global perspective of solar panel prices.

The price assessments will cover solar modules with 570 to 720 W of output and topcon specification and wafer sizes of 182 to 210 mm. Prices will be expressed as an outright price in $/W.

“We take seriously our commitment to help the marketplace and industry find solutions to pricing challenges and we’re pleased to heed the call and bring transparency to the solar module market, which is becoming more commoditized and is increasingly important to energy transition planning,” said Jeffries.

The price assessments will be available through several of S&P Global’s products and services, including Platts Connect, Platts Market Center and the Platts price database.

From pv magazine Global

Total corporate funding in the solar sector reached $16.6 billion in the first half of 2024, according to data released by Mercom Capital Group in its latest solar funding and merger and acquisition (M&A) report.

The total figure, which includes venture capital/private equity funding, public market, and debt financing, is 10% lower year on year than the $18.5 billion raised in the first half of 2023. However, the number of deals increased 9% year on year with 87 recorded in the first half of 2024, compared to 80 deals during the same period last year.

VC funding activity decreased 29% year on year in the first half of 2024, with $2.7 billion raised in 29 deals. Solar public market financing hit $1.7 billion across eight deals in the first half of 2024, down 75% from $6.7 billion across 14 deals in the first half of 2023.

Solar companies raised $12.2 billion across 50 debt financing deals in the first half of 2024, marking a 53% increase from the $8 billion raised in 33 deals during the first six months of 2023. According to Mercom Capital Group, this period represented the highest first-half total for solar debt financing in a decade.

“Financing activity in the solar sector remains restrained despite tailwinds from the Inflation Reduction Act and favorable global policies,” said Raj Prabhu, CEO of Mercom Capital Group.

Prabhu added that high interest rates, an uncertain rate trajectory and timeline, increasing trade barriers, supply chain challenges, concerns about the US presidential election’s impact on the sector, and constantly evolving trade policies have created an “unpredictable and uncertain climate … This has slowed down development, investments and decision-making.”

There were 40 solar M&A transactions in the first half of this year, down from 48 in the same period of 2023. The largest deal involved Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management acquiring a majority stake in French renewable company Neoen for over $6.5 billion.

From pv magazine Global

The world will have to expand renewables capacity at a minimum rate of 16.4% per year through to 2030 to meet targets pledged at COP28, according to new statistics from IRENA.

IRENA’s latest report underscores a key risk: the world may fail to achieve its 11.2 TW target by 2030. The report reveals that renewables capacity grew by a record 14% in 2023. If this growth rate continues, IRENA said that the world could fall short by 1.5 TW, or 13.5%, of its target by 2030.

“Renewable energy has been increasingly outperforming fossil fuels, but it is not the time to be complacent. Renewables must grow at higher speed and scale,” said IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera. “Today’s report is a wake-up call for the entire world.”

COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber said that reaching the target will require more collaboration between governments, the private sector, multilateral organizations, and civil society.

“Governments need to set explicit renewable energy targets, look at actions like accelerating permitting and expanding grid connections, and implement smart policies that push industries to step up and incentivise the private sector to invest,” Al Jaber said. “Above all, we must change the narrative that climate investment is a burden to it being an unprecedented opportunity for shared socio-economic development.”

In June, the International Energy Agency published a report on the COP28 tripling renewable capacity pledge, after finding only only 14 of 194 National Determined Contributions from countries worldwide explicitly lay out 2030 targets for renewables capacity.

From pv magazine Global

Bifacial tracking systems have the lowest levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for more than 90% of the world, according to the International Energy Agency’s IEA-PVPS division.

Its Task 13 fact sheet, which focuses on bifacial tracking, explains that a combination of bifacial modules with single-axis tracking produces the cheapest electricity, as it increases energy output by up to 35% over conventional systems. It adds that cell designs in bifacial modules allow light to reach the cells from the rear side, with efficiencies from 60% to over 90% on the front side.

Bifacial PV cells and modules are overtaking the market share of monofacial PV technologies. IEA-PVPS forecasts that by 2033, bifacial modules with bifacial cells will account for more than 70% of the market. Trackers – particularly single-axis trackers – are also growing in market share, and are expected to surpass 50% market share by 2033.

IEA-PVPS says tracker companies are focusing on certain market sectors, such as dual-uses for agrivoltaics, deployment on nonagricultural or usable land, and highly sloped terrain. Figures from 17 tracker companies, equivalent to at least 87% of the global market share between 2012 and 2021, suggest that more than 80% of companies sell trackers in more than 10 countries.

The fact sheet includes an overview of system designs for optimal yield and value. Researchers found that all tracker companies surveyed offer backtracking, which adjusts tilt angles swiftly during adverse weather conditions like hail, snow, or strong winds to safeguard systems and modules.

The Task 13 working group of IEA-PVPS is currently studying best practices for bifacial tracking systems. This work involves conducting a blind PV performance modeling study where participants simulate six hypothetical PV systems using provided design and weather data. IEA-PVPS plans to publish a forthcoming report that will provide detailed insights to assist companies and developers in designing high-quality PV systems that consider all factors affecting performance.

The program’s latest work follows the Task 12 fact sheet on the environmental lifecycle assessment of PV systems, which was released in June.

From pv magazine Global

Cumulative shipments of 210 mm PV modules surpassed 260 GW in the first quarter of this year, according to Taiwan-based TrendForce.

The analysts said that seven of the top 10 module makers now make 210 mm n-type modules, with Trina Solar, Risen Energy, Tongwei and Huasun all now mass producing panels above 700 W.

“It is clear that the 210 mm n-type modules are emerging as the predominant choice in the market,” said TrendForce.

The research firm projected a 51.8% year-on-year increase in 210 mm module production capacity to about 1,105 GW in 2024. That would account for 78.29% of the large-format panel market this year and 82.51% by 2027.

The analysts said that production of large-format wafers will also continue to accelerate, with capacity projected to reach 1,174 GW this year. Large-format wafers now account for nearly 99% of all wafer production. In 2023, 210 mm and 210R wafers accounted for more than 38% of the market total, up 46% year on year.

“A prevailing trend in the industry chain is the concentrated focus on the advance of n-type, large-format and thin wafers … 210 mm (including 210R) has emerged as the next mainstream standard, heralding a new phase in wafer development,” said TrendForce.

Production of large-format cells, meanwhile, is expected to reach 1,549 GW this year. TrendForce said 210 mm cells will account for 1,296 GW of all large-format cells, for a market share of 82.66%. Its market share is set to increase to almost 92% by 2027.

In addition, TrendForce said the production capacity of all n-type cells will reach around 1,078 GW by the end of this year, for almost 69% of the total cell market. Tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) cells will account for around 909 GW of n-type cell production, or 58% of the total n-type cell segment.

“Continuous technological innovation and product upgrades are driving the advance of the PV industry,” TrendForce said. “The 210 mm n-type technology is set to spearhead a new industrial revolution, fostering the high-quality development of the new energy sector.”

From pv magazine Global

Global PV installations will range from 600 GW to 660 GW in 2024, according to Bernreuter Research.

Bernreuter said its forecast is supported by the shipment targets of the world’s six largest solar module suppliers for 2024. On average, JinkoSolar, Longi, Trina, JA Solar, Tongwei, and Canadian Solar aim for a growth rate of 40%, which, based on global solar installations of 444 GW in 2023, would result in 622 GW of newly installed capacity in 2024.

“Even if leading players gain market share as tier-2 and tier-3 manufacturers struggle in the current low-price environment, it is likely that new PV installations will exceed 600 GW (DC) this year,” said Bernreuter.

Bernreuter’s latest report, “Polysilicon Market Outlook 2027,” said low module prices will fuel demand in the second half of the year. “Once market participants conclude that the crash of the solar module price has reached its bottom, demand will accelerate,” explained Johannes Bernreuter, head of Bernreuter Research.

Global solar installations of 630 GW to 660 GW would exceed the report’s high scenario of 620 GW. The report also noted that China, with a market share of more than 50%, will continue driving global PV installations forward.

“Our new analysis confirms the more aggressive forecast approach we have adopted in the report,” said Bernreuter.

From pv magazine Global

Scientists from Rice University in Houston, Texas, have improved the stability of pervoskite solar cells by distributing 2D perovskites.

The scientists synthesized formamidinium lead iodide (FAPbI3) into ultrastable, high-quality photovoltaic films for high-efficiency perovskite solar cells. They hypothesized that using more stable 2D perovskites as a template could impart their stability to FAPbI3 during growth.

They fabricated four types of 2D perovskites to test the idea, two closely matching FAPbI3’s surface structure and two less well-matched, and used them to make different FAPbI3 film formulations. They found that the 2D crystal template improved both the efficiency and durability of FAPbI3 solar cells. Solar cells with 2D templates didn’t degrade after 20 days of generating electricity in air, while those without 2D crystals degraded significantly after two days.

“The addition of well-matched 2D crystals made it easier for FAPbI3 crystals to form, while poorly matched 2D crystals actually made it harder to form, validating our hypothesis,” said Isaac Metcalf, the lead author of the study. “FAPbI3 films templated with 2D crystals were higher quality, showing less internal disorder and exhibiting a stronger response to illumination, which translated as higher efficiency.”

The research team then found that by adding an encapsulation layer to the 2D-templated solar cells, stability was further improved to timescales approaching commercial relevance. According to their research paper – “Two-dimensional perovskite templates for durable, efficient formamidinium perovskite solar cells,” recently published in Science – the fabricated cell had a power conversion efficiency of 24.1% for a 0.5-square-centimeter active area and maintained 97% of their efficiency for 1,000 hours at 85 C under maximum power point tracking.

“Right now, we think that this is state of the art in terms of stability,” said Rice University engineer Aditya Mohite, “Perovskite solar cells have the potential to revolutionize energy production, but achieving long-duration stability has been a significant challenge.”

The team said that the findings could have an impact on light-harvesting, reduce manufacturing costs, and enable development of solar panels with that are lighter and more flexible than silicon solar panels.

“Perovskites are soluble in solution, so you can take an ink of a perovskite precursor and spread it across a piece of glass, then heat it up and you have the absorber layer for a solar cell,” Metcalf said. “Since you don’t need very high temperatures – perovskite films can be processed at temperatures below 150 C – in theory, that also means perovskite solar panels can be made on plastic or even flexible substrates, which could further reduce costs.”

The COP28 Tripling Renewable Capacity Pledge: Tracking countries’ ambitions and identifying policies to bridge the gap, says only 14 of the 194 National Determined Contributions (NDCs) explicitly lay out 2030 targets for renewables capacity. The commitments equate to 1,300 GW of renewables by 2030 – 12% of the 11,000 GW required to meet the global tripling objective set at COP28 in Dubai. China accounts for almost 90% of this NDC total, having explicitly set a goal of 1,200 GW of wind and solar by the end of the decade.

The IEA reported that governments’ domestic ambitions for renewables surpass NDCs. An analysis of policies, plans, and estimates of almost 150 countries revealed an intention to install nearly 8,000 GW of renewables worldwide by 2030, representing 70% of the required amount to achieve the tripling goal by 2030.

From pv magazine Global

Freight container shipping spot rates have increased to their highest level since 2022, according to data from Xeneta, a Norwegian ocean and freight rate benchmarking platform.

At the end of May, Xeneta said market average spot rates from the Far East to the US West Coast would reach $5,170 per forty-foot equivalent unit (FEU) on June 1. The figure is 57% higher than in May and the highest that spot rates have been for 640 days, surpassing the peak seen during the Red Sea crisis earlier this year. Spot rates are expected to peak at $6,250/FEU on the Far East to US West Coast line in June, just shy of the Red Sea crisis peak ($6,260).

On the Far East to North Europe trade line, spot rates are set to exceed the Red Sea crisis peak, reaching $5,280/FEU, compared to $4,839/FEU on Jan. 16. This will be the highest rate on this line for 596 days and an increase of 63% since 29 April.

Xeneta noted a similar story on the Far East to Mediterranean trade line, where spot rates are expected to edge past the Red Sea crisis peak of $5,985/FEU to reach $6,175/FEU. This would be an increase of 46% on May and the highest rates on the trade for 610 days.

With freight costs representing around 4% of a solar panel’s total costs, the spot rate increase is likely to have a knock-on effect on PV module prices.

Xeneta said the market has been hit by the ongoing conflict in the Red Sea, port congestion, and shippers deciding to frontload imports ahead of the third quarter, which is the traditional peak season. Despite the latest spot rate increases, Xeneta’s chief analyst, Peter Sand, said the growth is not as rapid as during May, “which may hint toward a slight easing in the situation.”

“This cannot come soon enough for shippers who are already having their cargo rolled, even for containers being moved on long term contracts signed only a matter of weeks ago,” Sand said. “Carriers will prioritize shippers paying the highest rates. That means cargo belonging to shippers paying lower rates on long term contracts is at risk of being left at the port. It happened during the Covid-19 pandemic and it is happening again now.”

“In such cases they have no other option than to pass these costs on directly to their shipper customers,” he said. “Carriers will continue to push for higher and higher freight rates so the situation may get worse for shippers before it gets better.”

From pv magazine Global

A new IRENA report proposes a multi-dimensional approach to energy security to align with the renewables-based transformation of the global energy system.

The “Geopolitics of the Energy Transformation: Energy Security” report advises policymakers not to transpose thinking from the fossil fuel era to a renewables-based system. It says this could lead to “significant oversights and ill-considered investments.”

“This is particularly crucial as governments make significant investments in infrastructure for systems that are increasingly electrified, digitalised and decentralised,” says IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera. “The report places the well-being of people and the planet at the centre of the evolving energy security narrative. Ultimately, it recognises that addressing energy security is as much a political endeavour as it is a technical one.”

IRENA’s multi-dimensional approach to energy security encompasses technologies, value chains, and societies. It examines demand-response, flexibility, ecosystems, and human security as preconditions for robust energy systems.

The agency predicts that technology, rather than fuel, will play a dominant role in renewables-dominated systems. It says this is why supply chain resilience must be enhanced.

“Technology supply chains will be exposed to geopolitical disruptions and uncertainties, their exposure magnified by the complex web of connections,” the report says. “Given the need to decarbonize the global economy and the critical role of energy for industrialization and development in the global south, resilience is an indispensable part of energy security frameworks.”

From pv magazine global

A new report from BloombergNEF says achieving net-zero by 2050 hinges on renewables capacity tripling between now and the end of the decade.

Its latest New Energy Outlook presents a pathway to net-zero by 2050 called the “Net-Zero Scenario” (NZS). It says the window to reach the target is “rapidly closing,” but adds there is still time “if decisive action is taken now.” BloombergNEF warns it will not be possible without accelerated spending, with a fully decarbonized global energy system by 2050 estimated to have a $215 trillion price tag. To reach net zero by 2050, it says progress in the next 10 years is “critical.”

“The period 2024-30 is dominated by rapid power-sector decarbonization, energy efficiency gains and rapid acceleration of carbon capture and storage deployment,” the report says. “Wind and solar alone are responsible for half of emissions abatement during this seven-year period.”

It explains that with renewables driving the bulk of emissions cuts this side of 2030, there will be more time to tackle “hard-to-abate” areas such as steelmaking and aviation, where cost-competitive low-carbon solutions have yet to scale.

BloombergNEF’s NZS says that while the deployment of renewables will continue into the 2030s, the focus will switch to electrification, with electrifying end uses in industry, transport and buildings accounting for 35% of the emissions avoided during this period. It then predicts that the 2040s will rely on a mix of different technologies aimed at hard-to-abate sectors, where hydrogen will account for 11% of emissions reductions.

The report lists nine technology pillars for a net-zero world, which would work to address different elements of the carbonization challenge. BloombergNEF says four of the nine pillars – renewables, energy storage, power grids and electric vehicles – are already “mature, commercially scalable technologies with proven business models.” These are described as technologies which require a significant acceleration to get on track for net zero, but there is little to no technology risk, economic premiums are small or non-existent, and financing models are already at scale.

S will require 2.9 million square km of land for solar and onshore wind projects by 2050, almost 15 times more than was being used by the two technologies in 2023.

It warns that land constraints in some countries – namely, South Korea, Vietnam and Japan – may mean the total land area suitable for solar construction could face saturation, indicating a greater share of less land intensive technologies will be needed in the future. The report says one solution may be using land for solar that can also be used for crops.

“The way in which these segments compete for, and co-exist on, the same land will shape future permitting and zoning rules, particularly if the rollout of low-carbon technologies is seen to threaten food security,” the report predicts.

BloombergNEF also says regardless of whether the world heads for net-zero or it ultimately proves a stretch too far, “the era of fossil fuels’ dominance is coming to an end.” The report predicts that even if the net-zero transition is propelled by economics alone, with no further policy drivers to help, renewables could still cross a 50% share of electricity generation by the end of this decade.

Residential solar installer Sunrun has developed a VPP so Puerto Ricans can contribute energy from their solar-plus-storage systems and stabilize the island’s electrical grid.

Sunrun said that by the start of May, it had enrolled nearly 1,800 customers and more than 2,000 batteries onto its PowerOn Puerto Rico program, which launched in fall 2023.

The figure makes Sunrun the largest participant in Puerto Rico’s Battery Emergency Demand Response Program, which is administered by the island’s electric utility, LUMA, in response to ongoing power shortfalls. When LUMA foresees power supply shortfalls, Sunrun’s battery fleet dispatches stored solar energy from customers’ batteries to stabilize the grid and avoid blackouts and the use of fossil fuel power plants.

Sunrun said its current fleet of batteries on the island provides more than 15 MWh of energy to support LUMA’s grid. An average 40% of storage capacity is reserved for personal backup at each customer’s home.

Customers are compensated for their participation, with Sunrun predicting at least an average of $550 per customer. The final level will be dependent on the amount of power sharing events per year, with more compensation if there are more events.

Sunrun and LUMA expect that there will be between 50 and 125 events per year that will require Sunrun’s fleet of enrolled systems to provide on-demand energy. A Sunrun spokesperson told pv magazine the project had been activated several times in the last week alone.

“LUMA has already called upon Sunrun a dozen times since last fall to activate our virtual power plant, with several of those being emergency events – meaning outages were imminent,” said Sunrun CEO Mary Powell. “The resilience of the people of Puerto Rico is truly remarkable. They consistently step up to help their community by sharing their stored solar energy and improving energy reliability for everyone.”

Puerto Rico moved to build a more distributed energy system following the dismantling of the island’s centralized energy grid in 2017, in the wake of Hurricane Maria. It currently boasts 1.6 GWh of residential-sited batteries.

The island has also tripled its distributed-generation solar capacity in two years, recording 680 MW towards the start of this year. It switched on its largest solar-plus-storage project to date in December 2023.

In February, pv magazine reported on Sunrun’s Peak Power Rewards, a program compensating California-based customers that dispatch power during peak grid demand.

Researchers from the University of Michigan have found that climate change will increase the future value of residential rooftop solar panels across the United States by up to 20% by the end of the century.

In “Climate change will impact the value and optimal adoption of residential rooftop solar,” which was recently published in Nature Climate Change, the researchers quantified the effects of climate change on rooftop solar value and optimal capacity. They analyzed data from 2,000 households across 17 US cities, estimating air-conditioning demand and solar panel performance under future climates.

Mai Shi, the study’s lead author, told pv magazine that this is the first study to quantify how climate change will affect the value of rooftop PV for households in the future.

“Value here means economic value – how much does a household save on its electricity bill when it installs rooftop solar,” Shi explained. “Our analysis captures how climate change will affect household electricity demand through increased cooling demand and household rooftop PV generation.”

The researchers said that rooftop solar value will increase by between 5% and 15% across a wide range of US cities under moderate climate change by the mid-century, and then by up to 20% by the end of the century.  Greater increased value was analyzed in homes with larger cooling intensities and cities with increasing radiation and higher power retail prices.

Across the 17 cities, Miami and Orlando are expected to see the strongest increase in solar value. Shi said that in these cities, climate change is expected to increase solar radiation, which in turn will favor more rooftop PV generation, while increases in air temperatures will lead to more household electricity demand.

“Given the average 25-year lifespan of a rooftop solar installation, a system built today will nearly experience 2050 weather. Therefore, it’s important for households to think of future value when building solar,” Shi said. “If households do so, our findings indicate they would see even greater value from solar, and might decide to build more.”

From pv magazine Global

The global solar sector is “experiencing peak uncertainty and a challenging investment climate,” said Mercom Capital Group CEO Raj Prabhu in the consultancy’s new report on funding and merger and acquisitions (M&A) in the first quarter of 2024.

Mercom said total corporate funding into the solar sector stood at $8.1 billion in the first three months of the year. The figure includes 41 deals, marking a 4% year-on-year decline. However, the figure is a 47% quarter-over-quarter increase over the $5.5 billion raised in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Elsewhere, global venture-capital funding in the solar sector in the first quarter of 2024 hit $406 million across 13 deals, down 81% year on year. Public market financing reached $1.4 billion across six deals the first three months of 2024, down 39% year on year. Debt financing rose 59% year on year across 22 deals, according to Mercom.

“The solar sector is experiencing peak uncertainty and a challenging investment climate,” said Prabhu. “The sector is grappling with multiple hurdles, including the likelihood of prolonged high-interest rates, higher labor and construction costs due to inflation, and supply chain issues, coupled with trade disputes and tariffs.”

Mercom recorded a total of 21 solar M&A transactions in the first quarter, unchanged from the fourth quarter of 2023, but down from the 27 solar M&A deals recorded in the first quarter of 2023.

“Although a crash in Chinese module prices has spurred demand, it has made investments in manufacturing projects unattractive, even with incentives. VC investments were down, and M&A activity continues to be subdued,” Prabhu added. “Given the current market conditions, it wouldn’t be surprising if the recovery is delayed further in conjunction with rate cuts.”

Meanwhile, Wood Mackenzie said in a separate report that if high interest rates persist, the transition to a net-zero global economy will be “even harder and more costly.”

In the consultancy’s latest report, ‘Conflicts of interest: the cost of investing in the energy transition in a high interest-rate era’, it said that the higher cost of borrowing negatively affects renewables and nascent technologies compared to oil and gas and metals and mining sectors, putting future renewables projects at risk.

“Interest rates, which have risen sharply in the past two years, may not come down as far or as quickly as markets anticipate,” said Peter Martin, Wood Mackenzie’s head of economics. “This increased cost of capital has profound implications for the energy and natural resource industries, particularly the cost and pace of the transition to low-carbon technologies.”

WoodMac said that in the United States, a 2% increase in the risk-free interest rate could push up the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) by as much as 20% for renewables. The comparative increase in LCOE for a combined-cycle gas turbine plant is 11%.

The research firm said that solar and wind have an economic advantage over hydrocarbon generation sources, but higher interest rates are eroding it.

“While power and renewables companies have higher gearing, they do compare favourably with other peer groups on a cost-of-debt basis. But this is precisely what makes them more sensitive to interest rates,” Martin said. “Mechanisms to reduce price and offtake risk enable power and renewables companies to obtain debt more cheaply than the relatively risky oil and gas and metals and mining sectors. The recent rise in interest rates, therefore, has a larger proportional impact on their cost of debt.”

From pv magazine Global

Global PV capacity grew to 1.6 TW in 2023, up from 1.2 TW in 2022, according to the IEA-PVPS Snapshot of Global PV Markets 2024.

The analysts said that up to 446 GW of new PV systems were commissioned last year, largely driven by rapid growth in China, alongside an estimated 150 GW of modules in inventories throughout the world.

“After several years of tension on material and transport costs, module prices plummeted in a massively over-supplied market, maintaining the competitivity of PV even as electricity prices decreased after historical peaks in 2022,” said the IEA-PVPS.

The report said that the oversupply of PV modules last year “shed light on the difficulties to align production and demand in a very versatile environment.” It noted that while production capacities increased significantly in China, growth only happened in a limited number of countries beyond China.

“Uneven political support in some markets could also be attributed to the difficulties to develop local PV manufacturing facilities in an already inundated market,” the report said, explaining that significant drops in PV module prices due to increased inventory, oversupply and competitive environment among manufacturers also caused strain on local manufacturing.

Elsewhere in the report, the IEA-PVPS said that both the rooftop and utility-scale segments grew in 2023. Approximately 45% of new capacity was on rooftops, continuing gradual growth seen since 2018 as rooftop markets opened in new countries, while decreasing installation costs and higher consumption costs made it more accessible for residential investors. The report noted that prosumers are becoming more active market drivers across the world, while noting a move away from net metering as PV costs go down.

The number of countries with theoretical penetration rates above 10% doubled last year, to 18. Spain, the Netherlands, Chile and Greece led in this metric, but more populous countries such as Germany and Japan also passed 10% for the first time.

From pv magazine global

Microinverter supplier Enphase has launched power control software designed for North American customers who use its Enphase Energy System.

The company said its Enphase Power Control system will give installers more flexibility in system design to build larger systems, while also helping them to avoid costly main panel upgrades and meet utility and national electrical code requirements.

“Homeowners transitioning to solar energy systems want to minimize issues and costs during installations,” said Keith Kruetzfeldt, president of Suntegrity Solar, a California-based installer of Enphase products. “The Enphase Power Control software enables us to avoid main panel upgrades in many situations which results in significant savings and better return on investment for our customers.”

The system is designed to enable second- and third-generation IQ Batteries to export stored electricity to the grid for economic benefit, said Enphase. It added that the system will enable installers to build batteries up to 80 kWh by using its IQ Battery 5P, which doubles the capacity of prior Enphase Energy battery generations.

The software can support a range of solar-only and solar-plus-storage combinations, including grid-tied and grid-forming applications.

Enphase Energy plans to launch additional power control functionality in the third quarter of this year, including support for busbar power control, which it said will enable homeowners to extract more power from their systems, while ensuring the main load panels of homes are within safe limits. The company said that later this year it plans to include its power control feature in Solargraf, its cloud-based design, proposal, and permitting software platform.

Toward the end of last year, Enphase Energy launched its IQ EV charger, unveiled new three-phase inverters for the small commercial market, and introduced a commercial-scale microinverter with 480 W of peak power output.

In February, it began shipping updated IQ8 microinverters in North America.

NREL has created a cost-estimation tool that evaluates the potential construction and labour costs associated with closed-loop PSH plants in the United States.

The tool allows operators to select from a range of system characteristics, accounting for factors such as local geology, labor rates and inflation. NREL said it could help grid planners to provide an accurate picture of how many PSH facilities could reasonably be built over the coming decades and how they could work together with batteries.

“Pumped storage hydropower is maybe the most promising energy storage solution we have to achieve the huge ramp up needed to achieve a clean electricity sector,” said NREL researcher Daniel Inman.

PSH is the biggest source of grid-scale energy storage capacity in the United States, accounting for around 96% in 2022, according to the US Department of Energy. But NREL said few new pumped storage hydropower facilities have been built since the 1970s, partly due to high upfront costs.

Closed-loop PSH systems, which are separated from naturally flowing waterways, are the favored option today as they are more environmentally friendly. NREL said that due to gaps in the construction of pumped storage facilities, it has been difficult to predict how much closed-loop facilities might cost.

“This tool allows potential project developers to get a ballpark figure for what a particular facility might cost,” Inman explained. “And a more realistic cost estimation would allow us to develop capacity expansion modeling results that are more realistic.”

Last week, NREL released a high-resolution solar data set covering Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East on its Renewable Energy Data Explorer tool.

In February, researchers from Australian National University published a global atlas for potential PSH sites in former mining areas.

From pv magazine Global

An additional 345.5 GW of solar was deployed throughout the world in 2023, according to official figures from IRENA, published in its Renewable Energy Capacity Statistics 2024 report.

These numbers differ substantially from figures released in February by BloombergNEF, which said global newly installed PV capacity reached approximately 444 GW last year.

IRENA’s figures represent a 32.2% increase on 2022 levels and are a record for a single calendar year. Solar represented roughly 73% of total renewable-energy deployments last year, at 473 GW overall.

From pv magazine global

The provincial government of Quebec in Canada plans to develop 300 MW of electricity from solar.

Under the terms of the proposed draft regulation, utility Hydro-Québec would tender 300 MW. The first tender could take place by the end of the year.

The provincial government said the deployment would establish several small solar parks that could be directly connected to the Hydro-Québec distribution network. It added the small solar projects could use large rooftops, parking lots, or urban wasteland, reducing impacts on natural or agricultural environments.

The initiative aims to diversify the area’s long-term energy supplies and create a framework for developing the solar sector in Quebec. The provincial government has acknowledged that solar will help to increase the energy supply quickly and at the lowest cost.

“The objective of these calls for tenders relating to solar energy is to have better knowledge of the market and the speed of deployment of projects,” said Quebec Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy Pierre Fitzgibbon. “In the current context of energy transition, solar energy is an essential complement to hydroelectricity and wind energy.”

Hydro-Québec’s 2023-32 Supply Plan shows that new energy supplies will be needed by 2027 to meet Quebec’s energy requirements.

The tender proposal is open to comments from local people and organizations for 45 days.

Quebec’s first solar plants came online in 2021, but wind and hydropower have remained the dominant sources of energy in the province’s renewables tenders.

From pv magazine global

The government of the western Canadian province of Alberta has ended an almost seven-month long moratorium on approving renewable energy projects. The pause started in August 2023, when the Alberta Utilities Commission began an inquiry into land use and reclamation.

Upon lifting the ban on Feb. 29, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said the government would now take an “agriculture first” approach to future renewables projects. It plans to ban renewable power projects on agricultural land deemed to have excellent or good irrigation potential, in addition to setting up 35 km buffer zones around areas the government classifies as having pristine views.

The Canadian Renewable Energy Association (CanREA) welcomed the end of the ban, and said it did not affect operational projects or projects already under construction. However, it said it expects the impact to be seen in the coming years. It said the ban on approvals has “created a climate of uncertainty with negative consequences for investor confidence in Alberta.”

“While the pause has lifted, there remains significant uncertainty and risk for investors wishing to participate in Canada’s hottest market for renewables.,” said CanREA President and CEO Vittoria Bellissimo. “It is critical to get these policy changes right, and to do so quickly.”

The association said the government’s decision to make some parts of the province off-limits for renewables is “disappointing.” It said it means local communities and landowners will miss out on the benefit of renewables, such as associated tax revenues and lease payments.

“Wind energy and solar energy have a long record of co-location with productive agricultural land use,” said the association. “CanREA will work with the government and the AUC to seek opportunities to continue these beneficial approaches.”

Alberta is at the forefront of Canadian renewables development. Figures from CanREA show that the province accounted for more than 92% of Canada’s overall growth in renewable energy and energy-storage capacity in 2023. It added 2.2 GW of installed renewables capacity last year, including 329 MW utility-scale solar and 24 MW of on-site solar.

CanREA said another 3.9 GW of projects with the potential to come online in 2025 are in the pipeline, alongside another 4.4 GW of proposed projects with later commissioning dates. But it warned that these are all now “at risk.”

Figures from the International Energy Agency show that at the end of 2022, Canada’s cumulative solar capacity hit 4.4 GW. Alberta had the second-most installations, at 1.3 GW, only exceeded by Ontario at 2.7 GW. The country has set a target of 35 GW of total solar capacity by 2050.

From pv magazine Global

Florida-based Merida Aerospace is developing perovskite solar cells tailored for space applications.

The cells are geared to enhance performance and economy for low-Earth-orbit satellites, which often rely on solar panels as their primary power source.

Merida Aerospace is billing perovskite solar cells as a “promising alternative” to gallium arsenide solar panels, which have traditionally been the go-to for space solar applications. The company said that perovskite cells have a simplified manufacturing process for better cost-effectiveness.

It said perovskite cells are also flexible and versatile, making the material suitable for a diverse range of applications.

From pv magazine Global

Corporations globally announced 46 GW of solar and wind PPAs in 2023, according to the latest report from BloombergNEF.

The figure represents a record high in a calendar year and a 12% year-on-year increase from 2022. The global PPA market has now grown by about one-third on average since 2015.

BloombergNEF said improving economics in key regions such as Europe, alongside imminent company clean energy goals, were the main drivers.

“It has never been easier to buy clean energy as a corporation,” said Kyle Harrison, head of sustainability for BloombergNEF. “For the first time, a variety of contracting structures are now widely available around the world to help companies decarbonize their energy consumption. These contracts are now the centerpiece in many companies’ sustainability strategies, rather than a nice-to-have.”

Between 2022 and 2023, Europe saw its corporate PPA volumes grow 74% to 15.4 GW – by far the largest growth of any region. BloombergNEF said that as “supply chain woes eased and gas balances normalised following the region’s energy crisis in 2022, corporate PPA prices in the region dropped, often faster than power prices.”

The United States remained the largest market for PPAs, with 17.3 GW of deals announced, but was 16% down year on year on the record 20.6 GW achieved in 2022.

BloombergNEF said that economics for signing PPAs were weaker in the United States than in Europe in 2023.

“Power prices didn’t rise at the same rates, resulting in buyers holding off on signing deals until the market recalibrates,” said BloombergNEF.

Amazon was the world’s largest corporate clean energy buyer for the fourth consecutive year. It announced 8.8 GW of PPAs across 16 countries, including 5.6 GW of solar PPAs. Amazon was followed by Meta, which announced 3.1 GW of PPAs, all in solar.

BloombergNEF said companies with 100% clean energy targets under the RE100 initiative will need an additional 105 GW of solar and wind by 2030.

“With the rise of artificial intelligence, electrification of transport and increased need for manufacturing, we expect power demand from the private sector to surge in the coming years,” said Harrison. “Clean energy, especially through PPAs, will likely be many companies’ first, best option.”

Companies signed deals with more than 150 developer counterparts in 2023. French utility Engie led the way, selling 2.4 GW of deals. It was the first time Engie topped the leaderboard since 2019.

Earlier this year, a report by Mercom Capital Group found that solar companies raised $34.3 billion in corporate funding in 2023 – the largest amount in a decade.

From pv magazine global

A research team from the U.S. Department of Energy’s NREL has reviewed the degradation of commercial and utility-scale PV sites from across the United States between 2008 and 2022.

Their data set, thought to be the largest of its kind for such a project, consisted of data from 25,000 inverters across almost 2,500 commercial and utility-scale PV sites in 37 states and U.S. territories, equivalent to almost 8 GW of solar. The mean age of the PV systems observed was five years.

The researchers found a median loss in performance rate of 0.75% per year, matching similar values reported by previous studies. The analysis discovered systems in hotter temperature zones exhibited twice as much performance loss than those in cooler climates, at 0.88% per year and 0.48% per year respectively. Overall, 90% of systems studied saw losses in performance of less than 2% per year.

Chris Deline, a group manager for PV field performance at NREL, said the median loss in performance is a “crucial number.”

“First, it shows that our fleet of PV systems, on the whole, is not failing catastrophically, but rather degrading at a modest rate within expectations,” he said. “It’s important that we quantify this rate as accurately as we can, because this small but tangible number is used in almost all financing agreements that fund solar projects and provides critical guidance for the industry.”

The short-term impact of extreme weather, such as flooding, high winds, hail, wildfire and lightning, was minimal in most PV systems studied. The median outage length after an extreme weather event was two to four days, resulting in a 1% median loss in annual performance.

A total of 12 systems out of 6,400 experienced outages of two weeks or more. Most outages occurred because of flooding and rain, followed by wind events. Most systems in the data set experienced only one weather-related outage.

The researchers, however, found that when powerful enough, extreme weather can accelerate long-term degradation. Hail greater than 25 mm in diameter, winds over 90 km/h and snow of depths greater than 1 meter were found to lead to greater annual performance losses in PV systems, such as mechanical stresses cracking solar cells.

“We don’t feel any of this analysis suggests that PV systems are unreliable or especially vulnerable to extreme weather. PV has demonstrated that it can provide backup power and save lives when surrounding infrastructure is damaged by extreme weather events,” said NREL researcher Dirk Jordan. “Yet, there are further measures we can take to improve the quality of equipment and especially installation best practices to increase resilience to these weather events.”

Ownership may lie with module manufacturers and PV testing organizations understanding the thresholds at which damage can occur. Then, the NREL says, the industry can begin to design for these conditions and create tests that subject panels to realistic stresses created by wind, snow and hail.

“High-quality installations are also key to increasing resilience against extreme weather. Standardizing installation practices, such as using through-bolting and mounting modules far enough from the edge of roofs in wind-prone areas, could help mitigate system performance impacts,” Jordan added.

From pv magazine global

Analyst firm Wood Mackenzie forecasts the solar industry will shift from a high growth industry to a slower-growing, mature industry in 2024.

According to predictions in a new report shared with pv magazine, annual average growth will be flat over the next eight years, bucking a trend of rapid growth over the last decade. Between 2024 and 2032, global solar installations are expected to reach around an average of 350 GW each year, peaking at 371 GW of installed solar in 2025 and 2030.

“Starting in 2024, the industry is officially past the inflection point, characterized by a slower growth pattern. The global solar market is still many times larger than it was even a few years ago, but it’s natural for an industry’s growth to slow as it matures,” the report says. “In this new era of solar growth, companies will need to be more diligent and focused than ever. Competition amongst suppliers will intensify and efficiency improvements will be critical to remaining profitable”.

Wood Mackenzie says a few major markets are driving this new growth pattern. China’s solar market is expected to reduce slightly in 2024. While it will continue to be the world’s largest market, it is predicted to shrink due to grid infrastructure investments not keeping pace with project growth, changing revenue schemes for utility-scale solar reducing prices and distributed solar growth slowing.

Europe, which saw annual installation growth of 38% in 2022 and 26% in 2023, is expected to see an average annual growth of 4% over the next five years. The report cites a spike in retail rates as the energy crisis wears off, the slowing down of distributed solar growth and grid infrastructure capacity limits for the slowing down.

Average growth in the United States, which reached 27% between 2019 and 2023, is expected to fall to 6% between 2024 and 2028. But Wood Mackenzie expects the full breadth of the Inflation Reduction Act to materialize in 2024. It predicts this will lead to more contracted utility-scale solar projects, benefits for the distributed solar segment, and see the U.S. domestic module manufacturing sector nearly triple in 2024, with 40 GW of capacity expected to be operational by the end of the year.

The analysis firm also forecasts solar manufacturing will face “a reckoning” in 2024.

Market expansion has been primarily driven by China, whose module manufacturing capacity alone is already nearly three times global demand. This oversupply is driving China to module price record lows and Wood Mackenzie says cheaper Chinese modules will challenge many countries’ plans to build out vertically integrated domestic solar supply chains. It predicts many planned facilities will fail to materialize, while existing facilities will be hard-pressed to stay in business as utilization rates decline.

“This is not new – solar manufacturing is known as being a notoriously challenging business. But the sector has also never been this large. With global demand growth slowing, manufacturers will have to be as innovative as ever to remain a going concern,” the report states.

From pv magazine global

A research team from the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have said that insect levels have tripled in less than five years at two solar sites built on retired agricultural land in southern Minnesota.

Native grass and wildflowers were planted at the two solar facilities, operated by Enel Green Power North America, in early 2018. Between August 2018 and August 2022, the research group conducted 358 observational surveys of flowering vegetation and insect communities.

They found that total insect levels tripled, with native bees showing a 20-fold increase in numbers. The most commonly observed insect groups were beetles, flies and moths. An increase in native plant species was also noted, while pollinators from the solar sites were seen visiting and pollinating soybean flowers in adjacent crop fields.

Lee Waltson, a landscape ecologist and environmental scientist who was the lead author of the study, said the research “highlights the relatively rapid insect community responses to habitat restoration at solar energy sites.”

“It demonstrates that, if properly sited, habitat-friendly solar energy can be a feasible way to safeguard insect populations and can improve the pollination services in adjacent agricultural fields,” said Waltson.

The Argonne National Laboratory said the findings suggest that habitat-friendly solar sites could play an important role in conserving biodiversity and mitigating land-use conflicts associated with the conversion of farmland for solar energy production. It noted that this could be particularly beneficial for the future development of ground-mounted solar.

However, they warned that additional research is needed to understand the feasibility of habitat-friendly solar across different regions and to meet ecological goals such as conserving target insects or wildlife species.

From pv magazine global

SolarEdge announced a global workforce-reduction plan that will affect approximately 900 employees, or about 16% of its total workforce.

The company said the reduction is part of a restructuring plan “designed to reduce operating expenses and align its cost structure to current market dynamics.” It said it will provide more details in an upcoming end-of-year earnings release.

“We are making every effort to treat our departing colleagues with respect and gratitude for their contributions and support them in their transition. We remain confident in the long-term growth of the solar energy market and our leading position in the smart energy space,” Chief Executive Zvi Lando said. “These changes do not impact our strategic direction and priorities and we remain committed to continue to drive the renewable energy transformation, while providing best in class technology and support to our customers.”

The company said the job losses are the latest in a series of measures it has taken to align with current market conditions. It has shut down manufacturing in Mexico, reduced manufacturing capacity in China, and terminated its light commercial vehicle e-mobility activity.

Earlier this month, U.S. investment firm BlackRock, which is SolarEdge’s biggest shareholder, increased its stake in the company to 15.8%.

After a poor Q3, 2023 earnings report in early November, SolarEdge saw its stock drop precipitously. The company had reported a Q3 adjusted loss of 55 cents per share, which missed earnings estimates of 68 cents, and in the hours following the report, its stock price immediately fell 10% to 20%.

In December pv magazine USA reported that the S&P Dow Jones Indices will move SolarEdge (NASD: SEDG) from the S&P 500 to the S&P SmallCap 600 prior to the open of trading on December 18. For Q3 2023, the company posted revenues of $725 million, $676 million of which is from its solar segment.

The company’s share price dropped by 67% in 2023 and falling by almost 80% from its peak in 2021. However, looking ahead to Q4, SolarEdge provided guidance of $325 million in revenues.

From pv magazine Global

Solar companies raised $34.3 billion in corporate funding last year – the largest amount in a decade, according to Mercom Capital Group’s latest report on funding and merger and acquisition (M&A) activity for the sector.

The overall figure accounts for 160 deals and represents a 42% year-on-year increase from 2022, when $24.1 billion was made across 175 deals.

Funding from private marketing financing reached $7.4 billion last year, a 45% increase from last year and the second highest figure since 2013. Meanwhile, solar companies raised $20 billion in debt financing, a 67% increase from last year and the highest amount in the last decade. Mercom Capital Group said securitization activity was a key contributor, with $3.4 billion in 11 deals.

Funding from solar venture capital activity was down 1% on last year, reaching $6.9 billion across 69 deals in 2023. From that figure, $4.7 billion (68%) went to 42 solar downstream companies. Solar companies raised $1.9 billion, balance of system companies raised $311 million and service providers raised $32 million.

Mercom Capital Group CEO Raj Prabhu said investments into solar continue to defy expectations.

“Driven by the Inflation Reduction Act, the global focus on energy security, and favourable policies worldwide, solar continues to attract significant investments,” he said.

While funding activity was strong, M&A activity declined 25% year-on-year, with 96 corporate transactions in 2023, compared to 128 in 2022. The largest transaction was by Brookfield Renewable, which acquired Duke Energy’s unregulated utility-scale commercial renewables business in the United States for approximately $2.8 billion.

“Higher borrowing costs have put a damper on M&A transactions, with cautious investors biding their time for more favourable valuations,” Prabhu said. “Solar projects continue to attract interest, but high valuations and a lower risk appetite, compounded by unpredictable project completion timelines due to interconnection delays, labour shortages, and scarcity of components, have all contributed to a drop-off in project M&A activity.”

There were 231 large-scale solar project acquisitions in 2023, down from 268 deals in 2022. In 2023, almost 45.4 GW of solar projects were acquired in 2023, compared to 66 GW in 2022, down 31% year on year.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has released a draft analysis of the Utility-Scale Solar Energy Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS), also known as the Western Solar Plan. It is designed to guide responsible solar development on public lands.

First published in 2012, the plan originally identified areas in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah with high solar potential and low resource conflicts. The new document refines the analysis in the original six states and expands it to include Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.

It identifies 22 million acres across the 11 states that are best suited for solar development.

The document calls for solar development to be focused on areas with fewer sensitive resources, less conflict with other uses of public lands, and close proximity to transmission lines, having identified 200,000 acres of land near existing transmission infrastructure.

Ben Norris, vice president of regulatory affairs at the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), said the BLM’s proposal is a “big step in the right direction and recognizes the key role solar plays in our energy economy.”

“Under the current policy, there are at least 80 million acres of federal lands open to oil and gas development, which is 100 times the amount of public land available for solar,” he added. “SEIA has been advocating for changes to the Solar PEIS for over 12 years and appreciates BLM’s extensive efforts to gather stakeholder feedback and make revisions that balance development and conservation. We will continue to urge the Administration to streamline permitting and harness the federal lands portfolio to supercharge job creation, promote energy security, and improve conservation outcomes.”

The BLM also announced the next steps on several renewable projects in Arizona, California and Nevada, representing more than 1,700 MW of potential solar generation.

The BLM has approved 47 clean energy projects, or enough to power more than 3.5 million homes, under the Biden administration.

In December, the SEIA predicted that the United States added 33 GW of solar capacity across the country in 2023.