Markets & Policy

The question of overly complicated, time-consuming permitting processes again raised its head at a two-day online event held by the Global Solar Council to examine how to accelerate deployment of photovoltaics.

A major hurdle confronting large-scale solar and wind projects in Australia has been addressed with the Australian Energy Market Commission fast-tracking a rule change governing how electricity generators connect to the grid.

According to Asia Europe Clean Energy (Solar) Advisory Co. Ltd, demand for solar PV in China could “effortlessly” surpass 100 GW in 2022, following a year of “flat” demand in 2021. It adds that a “massive overcapacity” situation in the production sector is looming. Meanwhile, the distributed solar PV market is on track for huge growth, with potential for annual demand to reach upwards of 20 GW+ from next year.

With projects in many PV markets ageing past the 10-year mark – with major leaps in technology having occurred in that time – revamping is a popular topic among asset owners. Pv magazine spoke with Asier Ukar, general manager of the Spanish subsidiary of German testing company PI Berlin, to uncover the benefits of revamping PV projects with new components and also to examine the challenges and risks involved.

Unprecedented capacity expansions and massive technology changes, all happening at a frantic pace, signal that PV is entering the terawatt era. However, challenges in supply and demand imbalances across the value chain, combined with emerging technical and quality risks, require detailed analysis and due diligence from buyers to avoid pitfalls, according to George Touloupas, Joseph Johnson, and Aditya Vardhan from Clean Energy Associates.

Floating PV is a growing market, especially in Asian countries with land pressures. However, like many promising niches, it is growing faster than the standards surrounding it. With installed floating PV capacity set to double in 2021, a raft of various and sometimes competing standards are being floated, but the question remains – what is truly the best way forward?

Ongoing grid connection issues and concerns about Australia’s unpredictable regulatory and policy environment have been identified as the key culprits with a new report revealing investor confidence in the nation’s renewable energy sector has slumped to a five-year low.

Smart Power India (SPI), a subsidiary of US-based impact investor Rockefeller Foundation, has supported the setting up of more than 300 renewable energy mini-grids cumulating to 9.2 MW of capacity across Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand, the largest such cluster in India. Jaideep Mukherjee, chief executive officer at SPI, spoke to pv magazine about the role of mini-grids in rural upliftment and the barriers to overcome.

Q Cells and Samsung have agreed to combine their hardware and software platforms to develop ‘zero energy homes,’ with on-site energy production and use.

There’s talking the talk, there’s walking the walk, and then there’s walking the walk on water. Earlier this year at US President Joe Biden’s Virtual Leaders Summit on Climate, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the city-state would need to “innovate and use technology extensively” to overcome its resource scarcity. With one of the world’s largest floating PV arrays now in operation, it seems as if Singapore is floating in the right direction.