Policy

As the federal government aims to ink a deal with the states on the National Energy Guarantee in August, it appears still to be negotiating within its own ranks. The ANU’s Mathew Stocks and Andrew Blakers crunch the numbers to assess whether coal or renewables will pay off for costs and jobs in Queensland.

According to a new report from the PV Market Alliance (PVMA), the global solar PV market will only be marginally affected by the recent China policy decisions, and will grow to become an up to 200 GW market by 2022. Diversification will continue, with new segments accounting for up to 25% of the entire market by this time.

Describing it as the “D-Day for renewables”, the Smart Energy Council is raising funds to campaign against the National Energy Guarantee – as currently proposed by the government. The solar and storage peak body has called for a 45%-by-2030 emissions reductions target as opposed to the current 26%.

The analyst is expecting carnage throughout the solar value chain as the result of reduced policy support for deployment in China.

During May utility-scale solar provided 17% of generation on California’s grid, outpacing gas for the first time on a monthly basis.

On Friday, three Chinese government ministries issued a joint “2018 Solar PV Power Generation Notice.” Its impact has been hotly debated since, with two key conclusions: the largest market segment – utility-scale PV – will take a pounding and not come close to last year’s record installation figure of just under 34 GW; and the expanding distributed generation market segment, which rose 360% from 2016 to 2017, will also be severely impacted by a 10 GW cap on new projects.

New policies affecting all solar market segments in China are likely to lead to production overcapacity in the second half of 2018. The new regulations, announced June 1, will likely see the Chinese market decline from an expected 40-45 GW to 30-35 GW for the year, analysts report.

With an unprecedented rollout of rooftop solar reaching 1.1 GW and around 700 MW of large-scale renewable energy projects completed and connected to the grid, last year was an important turning point for Australia’s clean energy industry, shows the Clean Energy Council in its latest report. However, seven times bigger capacity of utility-scale projects with financial support or under construction at the year’s end is poised to eclipse 2017.

Australia’s energy utility Snowy Hydro has invited potential energy suppliers to submit their proposals with the aim to contract up to 400 MW of wind and 400 MW of solar generation.

A new report from a think tank headed by former U.S. Energy Secretary Moniz reveals an additional 100,000 jobs with a part-time solar component, and hints at the political powerhouse that solar is becoming.