China

Many expansion plans are still firmly afoot in the Chinese solar PV manufacturing industry, if the information pv magazine gathered from some of the country’s leading manufacturers at last week’s Smarter E event, are anything to go by. Indeed, Tongwei , Longi, Sunport and BYD are all progressing at full speed with their capacity ramp ups.

Former manufacturing giant establishes a foothold in the promising Australian market, and says it is in talks with developer Biosar about supplying further modules for projects in the nation.

The predicted fall in global PV module prices appears to have already begun, with PVInsights and EnergyTrend reporting average prices in the $0.27-$0.37/W range.

Solar PV capacity is set to grow 17-fold, and wind six-fold, by 2050, to account for nearly half of global electricity generation, predicts BNEF, while investments will reach US$11.5 trillion. Cost reductions will drive this charge, particularly in the battery market, which will benefit from the EV manufacturing ramp up. Despite this, the electricity sector is still failing to bring CO₂ emissions down to the required levels, with its continued dependence on gas.

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

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.

Tesla’s batteries may soon be Made in China. The announcement was made by Panasonic CEO Kazuhiro Tsuga during a conference accompanying the company’s 2018 fiscal-year results last Friday.

The solar module manufacturer reports that Europe will likely replace the United States as its number one market, due to Trump administration duties. While Q1 revenues grew by around 2.5% year-on year, and net profit almost doubled from $17.6 million to $31 million, the outlook for 2018 shipments has been reduced by 400 MW to 5.6 GW to 5.8 GW.

Chinese module manufacturing heavyweight JinkoSolar has announced the achievement of a new world record efficiency for a p-type monocrystalline silicon cell, at 23.95%. The record has been confirmed in testing by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.