2012 will be staged a solar photovoltaic disaster?

The disaster movie "2012" launched by Hollywood of the United States in 2009 is a series of natural disasters that describe the Earth's suffering from the solar storm. However, some analysts are now discussing whether Germany's further action to limit the price of solar energy purchases will not allow a true solar PV disaster to occur in 2012.

According to EuPDResearch's industry analysis, the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) was reviewed in mid-2011, and in the worst case, the market in 2012 may therefore have only 3 GW of capacity, compared to the current forecast of 2011. The market was 6.8 GW less, or 37%. Such a market catastrophe is not only comparable to Hollywood's disaster-producing films, but also points out that the political winds of a single country can affect the huge risks of the global market.

Looking back at the solar PV market in 2010, Markus Hoehner, CEO of EuPDResearch, put forward a question before the Solarpraxis Forum in Berlin, Germany in November: Is there really a so-called global solar photovoltaic market? In 2010, the global solar market reached 13.4 GW, and Germany occupies it. 54% of the world's total reaches 7.2GW; Italy has only 1GW in the rest of the world. EuPD forecasts that markets led by Italy, Japan and the United States outside Germany will grow from 6.2 GW to 8.6 GW in 2011, a growth of 39%; therefore, global industrial supply and demand can be maintained under the adjustment of German FIT policy. Very healthy condition. By 2012, major markets and regions must have achieved higher growth than 100% in 2010 in order to make up for the impact of German policy changes.

Germany will publish "ExperienceReportEEG" in mid-2011, according to the market conditions in 2010 to make specific amendments to the current EEG, the new law will be on the road in January 2012. Hoehner said: "We must assume that the strong growth of 2010 and 2011 will result in a greater reduction in FIT, or even a market cap limit."

The 3GW market cap is based on the 2020 52GW target set by the German NationalRenewableEnergyActionPlan (NREAP). EuPDResearch estimated from 2010 and 2011 that the market in 2011 is 25GW; therefore, if it is to achieve the target of 2020, there will be only 3GW of growth space per year.

To make up for the gap in the German market, many analysts believe that markets in other regions will be able to grow rapidly and fill the gap in the German market. GTMResearch believes that there will be 15GW of demand in 2011, which is 6% higher than that in 2010, and it will grow by 17% to 19% in 2012 and beyond. GTM analyst ShyaMehehta said that Germany's market attractiveness will decline in 2011 and 2012, but there are still more than 5GW of the market each year, others such as: the United States, Italy, France, Canada, China, Japan and some secondary market areas Can make up for the gap in the German market.

The BarclaysCapitalUSCleanTechnologyReport on December 13 pointed out that the US solar market is ready to surpass Germany in 2011. Data comes from major companies: FirstSolar expects North America to be its largest market in 2011; SunPower expects to achieve 40% growth in the North American market in 2011; Suntech is also confident that the market will double in 2011.

The forecast of IMS Research, a market-adjusting company, is conservative, but AshSharma, director of solar energy research, thinks: “We are still very optimistic about 2011 and we estimate that the growth will be over 19GW; especially in major regions such as Italy and the United States, emerging markets such as Eastern Europe and Asia also cannot accommodate. Ignore."

IMSResearch predicts that Germany’s global market share will drop to 46% in 2010 and fall below 35% in 2011. In addition, the global new PV production capacity can increase to more than 100 GW over the next four years.

DeutscheBank predicted in its October Alternate Energy Report that the growth of the global solar module in 2011 has slowed due to the adjustment of German policies. However, with the continued growth of the United States, Japan, and other countries, demand is expected to pull back. The confidence growth momentum of the market growth mainly comes from the expected decline in the cost and average selling price of suppliers based in China.

Morgan Stanley believes that the big shift in Germany will not be in 2011, but in 2012. In the future, Germany will no longer have high installation capacity. The past FIT and low-profit measures have also produced similar bubbles; however, we expect that German politicians and legislators will not disrupt the market in 2011, but will wait until slightly later. 2012. (November 15 Morgan Stanley News)

In the post-German solar photovoltaic era, in response to possible solar storms in the future, EuPDResearch recommends that suppliers adopt some appropriate practices:

To reduce the cost, maintain competitiveness and increase internationalization by taking the same price as the mains, and participate in global solar energy promotion activities, whether it be in power storage, power grid or various support applications, unfortunately, compared to Germany. With the impact of changes in FiT policies, even if the supply chain strives to reduce costs and upgrade innovative technologies in the power grid, the demand for solar energy in the market cannot exceed 18-19 GW in 2012. As Markus Hoehner proposed in his SolarPraxis report, since the United States currently does not have federal laws related to FiT policies, countries such as Japan, India, and Canada have strict requirements on local self-control ratios, and the key to real demand for actual installations. The market is Italy, France, Spain and other regions. Therefore, in the next few years, the impact of the German market on global solar energy needs can only be offset by the following developments:

The demand for solar photovoltaics in China must be greatly increased, and it must not only become a major consumer region, but also become a supplier of solar energy.

The solar photovoltaic market needs to maintain both openness and local self-control, while other related trade restrictions must be minimized and avoided.

U.S. related policies must accelerate the promotion of the state government or the federal government so that the U.S. solar photovoltaic market can reach a certain level in both economic scale and solar energy resources.

In order to achieve long-term sustainable development and ensure cost reduction and effective policies, the global solar photovoltaic supply chain must further adopt international cooperation strategies.

SEMIPVGroup stands ready to help members face the challenges of these policies. In the volatile atmosphere of the future, we expect to create a global environment with healthy competition, continuous reduction of costs and fair competition, and avoid so-called “disasters”. occur.