Market Watch

Slowly but surely, China’s solar policy void is being filled with a 30GW auction at the heart of it. Carrie Xiao digs into the details as the draft proposals take the first steps towards official status.

Despite its coming of age from the days of state support, European PV remains at the mercy of regulatory whims. José Rojo examines how bureaucracy, grid bottlenecks and other pitfalls of government action can cripple solar as it becomes the driving force of a clean EU energy system.

This article reveals the top-10 module suppliers of 2018, based purely on own-brand shipped module MWp-dc volumes. For the past few years, we have sought to compile the top-10 module supplier list before the end of January (or at the latest before the Chinese new year). In practice, with the first two weeks of the year being a reset from any prior-year shipment rush or inventory clear-out, we end up having a couple of weeks to get the top-10 module supplier rankings done.

Solar cell production in 2018 represented change on many fronts, but may be remembered as a year during which Chinese-owned companies made further strategic moves as part of the current Beijing mandate to position the country as a high-tech manufacturing global powerhouse. This article explains how this is having a dramatic impact on solar cell manufacturing outside the control of leading Chinese-funded companies, and what this really means in terms of solar cell technologies and industry-wide technology roadmaps during 2019.

Tom Kenning looks at the latest developments in some of the most promising emerging PV markets worldwide. This issue features Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Mexico and the UAE.

Turkey has around 5GW of installed solar capacity, but potential for much more. Ekin İnal and Chris Down explore the latest developments in Turkey’s solar market and the regulatory reforms that could help PV take a much larger share of the country’s energy mix.

When Hitachi suspended development of its planned new nuclear power plant at Wylfa in early 2019, many thought the news would blow a hole in the country’s decarbonisation plans. But as costs continue to fall, even the UK government, not usually considered to be renewables’ closest ally, has pointed to the technologies’ role in plugging that gap. Liam Stoker looks at what might be required.

At the end of 2018 the Japanese government caught solar developers by surprise with a raft of punitive regulatory changes. Tom Kenning reports on the short- and long-term impacts these could have on the country’s PV industry.

Solar power is at the heart of an ambitious plan to tackle environmental degradation and poverty in the Sahel region. Tom Kenning reports on a programme that, if successful, could bring a multitude of environmental and economic benefits to a fragile part of the world.

Following years of frantic consolidation, the UK’s secondary solar market has begun to slow. Liam Stoker analyses what the future holds in store for the once-thriving market, and what’s next for long-term asset holders