The recent swathe of announcements from US policymakers – coupled with growing geopolitical unrest regarding Chinese manufacturing dominance and the role of solar PV from an energy security standpoint – has the potential to redefine PV technology, manufacturing and component supply chains in a way that the industry has never seen before, writes Finlay Colville, head of research at PV Tech.
A lack of engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) capacity in Spain represents a key challenge for the country’s solar industry as PV plant deployment soars and the government authorises gigawatts of new projects.
In the six months since the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed into law, the US has seen over 100,000 new clean energy jobs created across 31 states as companies begin to capitalise on the incentives and security that the bill offers.
Amid potential supply chain bottlenecks as China increases its PV manufacturing dominance, companies in markets such as the US, India and Europe are looking to leverage new policy support to scale up domestic production. Jules Scully charts the industry’s efforts to onshore solar module manufacturing.
Activities under the new Regional Emergency Solar Power Intervention Project, a US$311 million regional project for which the World Bank supports, have started in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Solar investors believe that Europe can be a competitive market for PV manufacturing and compete with the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), as ESG and energy security concerns will drive money to the continent.
The European Commission has released its Green Deal Industrial Plan based upon four pillars aimed to scale up a domestic manufacturing capacity for net-zero technologies.
