In 2014, a number of countries around the world began to develop into serious solar end markets. Ben Willis asks IHS analyst Josefin Berg to give her tips on the emerging markets to watch over the coming year.
At a conference in Thailand at the end of 2014, delegates heard of the region’s attempts to break free of costly diesel power. Lucy Woods reports on the progress solar energy is making in displacing the diesel generators.
Throughout 2014, there were widespread reports of China’s struggles to hit ambitious PV targets, particularly with distributed projects. Beijing-based solar expert, Frank Haugwitz, reveals the difficulties Chinese developers experienced.
Months after becoming an unexpected star of the 2014 football World Cup, solar struck gold once again in Brazil when it attracted huge interest in a national energy auction. But low bidding prices and the complexities of a local content requirement have tempered some of the excitement about Brazil’s emergence as a solar heavyweight. Lucy Woods weighs up its prospects.
Having blazed a trail in building PV power plants in Africa, Norway’s Scatec Solar recently secured financing for its first 43MW of projects in Jordan. Its chief executive, Raymond Carlsen, tells Ben Willis how the company is making the projects work financially.
While oil falls and Saudi stalls, detractors are questioning the future of solar in the Middle East and North Africa. But rising electricity prices coupled with rising demand mean solar power remains an important investment from Muscat to Marrakech, writes John Parnell.
As PV systems proliferate it is increasingly important to forecast their energy output in order to ensure a safe and reliable integration of their variable output into electric power grids. Dazhi young, André Nobre, Rupesh Baker and Thomas Reindl of SERIS outline a technique for generating large-scale 2D irradiance using data from pyranometers and plane of array cells.
Large-scale PV contractors must perform tests to verify the correct operation of a new installation. Jorge Coello and Leonardo Perez outline the minimum aspects to consider for the commissioning of large-scale PV plants using a methodology that has been successfully implemented in the commissioning of more than 40 PV facilities worldwide.
PV power plants require proportionally more up-front capital investment to develop and build than their fossil fuel counterparts. Modelling the lifetime performance of a PV power plant is therefore a critical exercise in proving a project’s bankability and securing finance to cover that cost. However, inaccuracies and uncertainties in modelling techniques create risk in the structuring of project finance. Evan Riley of Black & Veatch explores methods for improving the reliability of performance models and how then can be used to demonstrate that a PV facility will meet expectations.
Fixed and tracker solar mounting systems offer various relative cost and performance benefits. But as JA Solar’s Zhang Lan Jun and Gong Tie Yu describe, surprising results from field analysis of different systems used in China hold important lessons for developers wondering which ones to choose.
