As 2021 draws to a close, PV Tech is reviewing the year in solar, reflecting on some of the biggest stories and hottest trends of the last 12 months. Today we start in orderly fashion, analysing the headlines from the first three months of the year, as the industry got off to a roaring start.
With reductions in wafer prices now sustained and further reductions expected, Carrie Xiao assesses the potential for cell and module prices to fall in tandem and speaks to manufacturers and developers in China.
Operations and maintenance will face huge changes as automation and predictive analytics transform the way projects are managed, writes Sean Rai-Roche.
With subsidies now a distant memory in most markets, solar is increasingly finding itself deployed via government tenders and corporate PPAs. But what are the prospects for those to mature, and to what extent will merchant revenue models emerge this decade? Jules Scully reports.
The grid of 2030 will span vast areas, be highly automated and require a huge amount of storage as it seeks to connect terawatts of renewable capacity. Sean Rai-Roche speaks to experts about our future infrastructure needs.
The sun wasn’t shining in Glasgow for COP26 and many in the solar sector lamented the lack of mention in countries’ pledges. Nonetheless, some vital announcements were made that will be crucial to the industry’s growth and its role in reaching net zero, writes Sean Rai-Roche.
While the technological advancement of solar over the coming decade will play a significant role in driving deployment, actual installations will largely driven by two factors – manufacturing capacity and national decarbonisation targets. Jules Scully examines how much solar can be made, and deployed, by 2030.
While Mono-PERC is the eminent solar cell technology presently, its dominance is expected to be short lived with n-type TOPCon cells primed to takeover. But when will that technology shift happen? What does it mean for heterojunction? And what does that mean for tandem cells or perovskites? Liam Stoker finds out
The so-called ‘king of electricity markets’ is rapidly approaching an inflexion point, wherein solar PV will become the most prolific source of new-build power this decade. However to pave the way, numerous hurdles in the technological, manufacturing, O&M and grid fields will need to be surpassed. Liam Stoker, Jules Scully and Sean Rai Roche discover solar’s 2030 blueprint.
As Senate Democrats continue negotiations over President Joe Biden’s US$1.75 trillion Build Back Better plan, Jules Scully looks at how the package could drive solar deployment and bolster domestic PV manufacturing.
