Energy Market – Page 11 – Solar Magazine

$27.2 billion to invest in PV market in five years

The global PV materials market will double until 2018. Lux research says the main reason is the improvements of the supply demand balance. The global demand will be represented by materials differentiation and innovations.

Taking into account last year’s investments, the PV material market will grow from $17.8 billion to $27.2 billion by 2018. Part of that sum, $12.8 billion to be precise, is formed of witih metals, including polysilicon and metallic absorber materials. A $6 billion raise is due to the global demand of silicon modules.

Lux Research analyst, Fatima Toor announces that “differentiated materials that enable high cell or module efficiencies or longer lifetime will be able to earn a premium and cash in on the growing demand.”

Toor also said that the need of improved quality may lead to materials innovations that could lower the price per watt as well as the price per kilowatt hour.

Materials such as backsheets, non-EVA encapsulants, metallization pastes and antireflection coatings can also lead to material innovations.
Moreover, effective planning and implementation of the module quality can be the source of opportunities for materials developers.
Roxana Moraru

Polysilicon prices are to go up a little

The price rising is happening because of the anti-dumping tariffs China is set to establish on the polysilicon from the EU, U.S.A. and South Korea. According to IHS the new prices will not affect the industry.

The last IHS Polysilicon Price Tracker report also shows that the weight of the increase will be limited by market factors.

The stratagem could bring the global solar polysilicon pricing up to $19.50 per kilogram in June and July, while in May the price was $16.50.

The flood was unexpected in the market as the prices were going down in the last 10 months.

Despite all this, the report shows only an 18% increase, “falling short of the 30% indicator that would represent a major market correction. Prices also would remain below the key $20-per-kilogram mark.”

China was “likely to impose anti-dumping tariffs with rates ranging from 30 to 50% on polysilicon imported from the European Union, the United States and South Korea. However, the impact of the duties will be mitigated by factors including long-term agreements that stabilize pricing as well as efforts by buyers and sellers to bypass the tariffs”, announced Glenn Gu, senior analyst, photovoltaics, at IHS.

The report also predicts that global manufacturing overcapacity of solar-grade polysilicon will not allow sustainable local price spikes, although the local production us protected.

Roxana Moraru

A new South African PV project has Google’s $ 10m investment

Richard Needham, the Google director, announced that his company invested ZAR103 million, meaning US$10 million in the Jasper Project. The search engine giant believes that the African country can become a renewable energy driver for the entire continent.

Google’s director for energy and sustainability believes that there are points to take into account when analyzing PV investments. It can have an economic sense or it can attract other investments that will “bolster the growth of the renewable energy industry and move the world closer to a clean energy future”, in the director’s terms.

The failure of the Google’s investments is almost never revealed but Bloomberg did not failed to announce that the giant is one of the equity investors in the african PV project together with SolarReserve, a U.S project developer, development partner Kensani Capital Investments; Intikon Energy; the state-owned Development Bank of Southern Africa; non-profit organization P.E.A.C.E.; and state pension fund Public Investment Group.

The search engine giant never fails to announce its investments in renewable energy so Reuters says that the company funded $94 million of photovoltaic projects in California and launched a $280 million financing package with SolarCity for residential solar installations among with acquiring a 49% stake in a German solar project in 2011.

Roxana Moraru

A new line of PV related products will be unveiled by Solar Edge Technologies

The North American market would be provided with end-to-end solar power optimization systems and monitoring solutions as announced by SolarEdge Technologies, a global supplier.

The new line of Pv related products will be available for starters for commercial applications in North America.

The global provider offers: a line of 3-phase solar inverters from 9kW to 20kW in size; a 600W capable power optimizer enabling a two-to-one connection for 60 cell modules; and a new gateway for site communication and PV monitoring.

Among with the implementations of the new line, comes the possibility to alter a simpler photovoltaic system design. Above all this is the lowering of the installation cost.

“Lower LCOE [levelized cost of energy] with a differentiated and optimized solution is the key to winning in the commercial market, Improved energy harvest, superior operation and maintenance capabilities, and a simplified system design have already led to the successful installation of 150MW of 3 phase systems in Europe and we expect to encounter similar high demand in North America” announced Peter Mathews, Vice President of Sales for SolarEdge North America. “

The new Pv related products line allows the installation of a much longer module strings. The new inverters reach a high weighted CEC efficiency of up to 98%, with the help of string voltage design that can guarantee an optimal dc/ac conversion.

The new power optimizer reaches a maximum efficiency of 99.5%. SolarEdge can also optimize the PV system by developing the magnitude of energy harvest and allowing module level monitoring and enhancing system safety.

Roxana Moraru

New PV software solutions presented by Diaspark Inc

The entire PV energy business will have personalized and adjustable software solutions. This also aims at commercial and utility-scale solar markets.

The full line of PV software solutions will be named Diaspark Energy. This new PV solutions includes photovoltaic systems connected to a utility source or electrical service provider among software development features.

The most promising articles are Performance Monitoring and Analysis, Project Management, Alert Management, Comparison of Prediction vs. Actual Power Generation, Management of Compliance and State Incentive Programs.

“Diaspark has always been focused on high performance, reliable and customizable software solutions and will continue to develop robust software solutions under this new brand, which will help us distinguish our services in the renewable energy market” announced Parvindar S Gujral, VP Enterprise Services, Diaspark Inc.

The O & M unit will increase the competence, full proofness and safety by preventing the equipment’s problem. It also identifies routine and unplanned equipment maintenance and sends automatic notifications through email.

Roxana Moraru

Analysts from Luxor Research predict a 100% growth until 2018

The photovoltaic sector is said to reach US$155 billion until 2018, in the perspective of Luxor Research.

The analysts claim PV industry will jump up to 61.7 GW, although in 2013 there was only a minor increase to 35 GW. China is ready to jump to the top and become the biggest market.

The sector has dropped since 2011, but the researchers claim that it would have a “healthy 10% compound annual growth rate.”

The investigations also show that China, Japan and India will continue from the point where Germany and Italy have left off. Moreover, the U.S is going to be the second largest market with 10.8 GW of installations in the already mentioned year. Above it will be China, leading 12.4 GW.

Luxor Research show that commercial applications will become the head segment because of the U.S. and Japan increasing markets in the rooftop installations area.

“Manufacturers’ nightmare is turning into a long-term boon for the industry. Record low prices pushed gross margins to near zero or below, but they’ve made solar installations competitive in more markets, Supply and demand will come back into balance in 2015, easing price pressure, returning manufacturers to profitability and restoring the industry to equilibrium,” announced Ed Cahill, Lux Research Associate and the lead author of the report.

Roxana Moraru

ABB is being sued by Power-One stockholders

A lawsuit has been filed by U.S. inverter manufacturer Power-One stockholders against ABB, claiming that the $1 billion acquisition price is too low.

Power-One stockholders believe that their value has been underestimated by ABB who offered $1billion for purchasing the company. The former believe that the energy market is “set to explode over the next decade.”

Mario Furtado was the one who filed the class action and announced the main reasons to do so. He implied that figures from the U.S Department of Energy are in the opinion of the fact that global energy requests will raise by 100% in the next 12 years. Moreover the International Energy agency says that photovoltaic systems market will increase with 10% every year for the next 8 years.

One day before the announcement of the deal, the stocks were rated at the price of $4.04 by NASDAQ. ABB offered a bonus of 57% on top of that, bringing a stock to $6.34 and announced after the offer of a 59% bonus. However, Furtado said that the price could go higher, in the past year the stock range being around $7.

Thus the deal is said to be closed in the upcoming half of this year.

Roxana Moraru

China – Market research predicts China’s demand for PV in 2014 is 0.9-3.6GW

China – Market research predicts China’s demand for PV in 2014 is 0.9-3.6GW
Taking in consideration China’s reputation as the promised land for the solar industry, the newst report from Solarbuzz sayz that there are wild fluctuations in demand of the country, this could mean suppliers which rely on markets outside the People’s Republic will enjoy an advantage.
The solar market research company, in its latest edition of NPD Solarbuzz Quarterly, predicts that demand in China up to April 2014 will vary wildly between 0.9 and 3.6 GW per quarter.
Although NPD Solarbuzz is forecasting that will add up to more than 20% of global demand over the next four quarters, it will make managing inventories tough for companies focused on the Chinese market, whereas companies dependent on other regions will benefit from more predictable levels of demand.
The report’s authors say demand in Europe, of which 65% will come from established German, Italian, French and U.K. markets, will amount to between 2.7 and 3.2 GW quarter on quarter.
The rest of the world, with Japan predictably strong in the first half of the 12-month cycle and the U.S. mirroring that seasonality in the following six months – supported by emerging markets in south east Asia and the Middle East – will also supply more predictable demand in the year ahead.

Solar panels help the growth of coral reefs

Just like the rest of the environment around us the world’s coral reefs are in trouble, because of climate change and habitat destruction.

The researchers found a solution- to use electrified artificial reefs instead, called Biorocks.

Biorock start off as a Rebar skeleton structure or electrically-conductive wire mesh, called a Coral Ark, which it’s partially sunken or anchored into the seafloor with a solar panel floating on the surface above it, which provides a steady electrical current.

The electricity collected by the solar panels results in accretion coating the Ark with a natural concrete material very similar to that of clam shells.

With this, the structures can grow indefinitely—at a rate of 5cm annually—as precipitated materials add to the structure’s rigidity and will even repair themselves if damaged.

When these structures will solidify on the seafloor and will start more closely resemble natural reefs, they will begin to provide the same benefits of natural reefs which means a greater resistance to the incoming wave actions reduces the energy with which each wave hits the beach, allowing more suspended sand particles to be dropped on the beach.

Monocrystalline cells with an efficiency of 20.2 %

Schott Solar it’s able to produce monocrystalline screen-printed cells with an efficiency of 20.2 %.

The record cell with a performance of 4.92 W has been produced in industrial format, i.e. 156 mm x 156 mm.

The high efficiency technology used by Schott Solar is the same which has been using for some time for multicrystalline cells.

Since January 2011, the company has only focused intensively on substances related to monocrystallines.

To achieve more than 19% efficiency it was relatively easy, reports Schott.

To get over 20%, Schott Solar cooperated with the Schmid Group and took advantage of their selective emitter technology.

Now, Schott wants to get started with manufacturing optimization to transfer the result to new modules.

The company will announce more details at the EU PVSEC at the beginning of September in Hamburg.