China

As demand for atomic layer deposition equipment spreads among Chinese solar cell manufacturers, experts throughout the industry are sharing their insight on the merits of this emerging manufacturing technology. The numbers they crunch reveal tough competition for incumbent plasma-based deposition techniques. But beyond the hype, does atomic layer deposition truly offer the better deal?

Deploying commercial and industrial PV in China without subsidy is already profitable in some areas, according to a new study, but prohibitive soft costs and cheap electricity are the main barriers for such installations in areas where grid parity remains out of reach.

The energy storage market is set to be the latest affected by Trump’s trade war as lithium-ion batteries were excluded from the group of Chinese imports for which the U.S. president announced tariffs would be delayed until December 15.

The global installed capacity will grow from a modest 9 GW/17 GWh as of 2018 to 1,095 GW/2,850 GWh in the next two decades. Just 10 countries will account for almost 75% of the overall gigawatt market, with China, USA, India and Germany leading the pack.

The cost of solar power generation in India has fallen to half the level seen in many other markets in the region due to extensive solar resource, market scale and competition.

According to the latest market forecast published by Wood Mackenzie, it seems that global PV installation figures will rise to 125 GW per year from 2020. Continued global capacity expansion will come in through a growing gigawatts-club.

If China could travel back to the 1960s with its 2016 PV generation capacity it could harvest an additional 14 TWh of solar power, according to a study by academics at universities in Switzerland and the Netherlands. With a mixed record for reducing pollution, the country’s solar fleet output appears to be drastically affected by dimmed solar radiation.

India’s Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) has determined that flat steel products coated with aluminium and zinc are being dumped by manufacturers in China at dumping margins of 30-50%, South Korea (20-30%) and Vietnam (10-20%). It has proposed anti-dumping duty based on the same to offset material injury to domestic manufacturers.

With India losing major solar markets to stiffer competition from cheaper products, it’s high time to change the game by playing on quality and innovation—according to Vikram Solar Chief Financial Officer Rajendra Kumar Parakh, who spoke to pv magazine on the challenge of shrinking markets before Indian solar manufacturers.

Citing the risk to solar projects, lobby group the National Solar Energy Federation Of India has asked the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy to exclude flat steel products coated with alloy of aluminum and zinc from anti-dumping duty.