Cheapest Solar Ever? Austin Energy Buys PV From SunEdison at 5 Cents per Kilowatt-Hour

Greentech Media
City-owned Austin Energy is about to sign a 25-year PPA with Sun Edison for 150 megawatts of solar power at "just below" 5 cents per kilowatt-hour. The power will come from two West Texas solar facilities, according to reports in the Austin American-Statesman. According to reports, around 30 proposals were at prices near SunEdison’s. Austin Energy has suggested that the PV deal will slightly lower rates for customers. (...) The 5-cent price falls below Austin Energy's estimates for natural gas at 7 cents, coal at 10 cents and nuclear at 13 cents. The utility points out that it approved a 16.5-cent price for the Webberville solar plant in 2009.

US Solar Market Grew 41%, Had Record Year in 2013

Greentech Media
According to GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association’s Solar Market Insight Year in Review 2013, photovoltaic installations continued to proliferate, increasing 41 percent over 2012 to reach 4,751 megawatts. In addition, 410 megawatts of concentrating solar power came on-line.
Solar was the second-largest source of new electricity generating capacity in the U.S., exceeded only by natural gas. Additionally, the cost to install solar fell throughout the year, ending the year 15 percent below the mark set at the end of 2012. (...) “Perhaps more important than the numbers,” writes Shayle Kann, Senior Vice President at GTM Research, “2013 offered the U.S. solar market the first real glimpse of its path toward mainstream status. The combination of rapid customer adoption, grassroots support for solar, improved financing terms and public market successes displayed clear gains for solar in the eyes of both the general population and the investment community.”

Austria follows German lead on solar self-consumption fee

PV Magazine
The Ministry of Finance in Austria has voted to introduce a grid fee for mid-size PV systems installed for self-consumption, similar to the proposed changes outlined in Germany's Renewable Energy Act (EEG).
A levy of €1.5 per kWh will be charged to any PV system installed from March 1, 2014 that generates more than 5,000 kWh of solar power per year.
The move has been met with strong criticism from the Photovoltaic Austria Federal Association, which claims that a grid free will hit the country's commercial PV sector, particularly the nation's SME businesses.

Sharp to Halt Solar Panel Production at Memphis Plant

Bloomberg
Sharp, a Japanese electronics maker, will stop solar panel production at its factory in Tennessee as it reviews its photovoltaic panel business. Output will stop by the end of March, and the number of jobs to be cut at the plant in Memphis will be decided after talks with the labor union, said Miyuki Nakayama, a spokeswoman for Sharp. The Nikkei newspaper reported that as many as 300 employees are expected to be dismissed at the factory. The Osaka-based company is reconsidering its production capacity for solar products, Nakayama said. Sharp said last month that it will stop producing solar panels at its U.K. plant in Wales by the end of February and cut as many as 250 employees. “We are in the middle of structural reform for our solar business,” Nakayama said.

Solaire: Paris et Berlin étudient un projet d’usine géante

Les Echos
La France et l’Allemagne planchent sur la création d’une usine de panneaux solaires pour concurrencer les Chinois. Un projet susceptible de répondre aux vœux de François Hollande de créer un « Airbus » de l’énergie.

Spectrolab sets new solar PV cell efficiency world record of 38.8% without concentration

SolarServer
Spectrolab has produced a solar photovoltaic (PV) cell with a conversion efficiency of 38.8% without concentration of light. (...) This is a new world record, and beats Spectrolab's previous record by 1%. The multijunction PV cell was developed using new bonding technology from Spectrolab's parent company Boeing (Chicago). (...) Boeing notes that the technology can be used to power high-powered spacecraft and unmanned aerial

Nanosolar Reborn as German Silicon Module and BIPV Manufacturer

Greentech Media
Nanosolar was acquired by Smartenergy Renewable and has been rechristened "Smartenergy Renewables Deutschland GmbH." But no CIGS thin-film solar remains in the equation. The new company will now be a crystalline silicon module assembly, a building-integrated PV manufacturer, and an O&M firm, claiming advantage in vertical integration. And manufacturing in Germany. The company will continue to support existing CIGS customers.

For the full story, as seen from the sit of the former Nanosolar CEO can be read here.

China confirms plan to increase to 35 GW solar target by 2015

China State Council
Chinese government confirmed that the country’s solar target to be reached by 2015 has been increased to 35 GW, according to a statement from China’s State Council. The plan was annouced by the counsellor of China State’s Council and president of the Chinese Renewable Energy Society, Shi Dinghuan, in early February. At the time, Shi Dinghuan said that the Chinese government intended to raise 69% the installed solar capacity target by 2015, in the frame of the national policy to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, without revealing how the government aimed to reach the new target. It yesterday's press release, the State Council said that the new plan will enable the domestic solar market to grow by additional 10 GW annually over the next 3 years and will help the domestic solar industry to face oversupply and reduce its dependence on exports. To that effect, the State Council revealed that the central government will ban local governments from providing financial support to failing solar manufacturers. Instead, the government will actively encourage mergers and acquisitions to ensure a stronger, consolidated Chinese PV industry

DESERTEC Foundation is leaving the industrial consortium Dii

DESERTEC Press Release
Today, the DESERTEC Foundation announced the termination of its membership with Dii GmbH. (...)
In 2009, Dii GmbH had been founded as a cooperation between many renowned firms and DESERTEC Foundation to create appropriate conditions for the realisation of DESERTEC in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
The non-governmental Foundation, which is the main idea- and name-giver for the DESERTEC concept, is taking this step as a result of many irresolvable disputes between the two entities in the area of future strategies, obligations and their communication and last but not least the managerial style of Dii’s top management. DESERTEC Foundation also wants to avoid being dragged into the maelstrom of negative publicity about the management crisis and disorientation of the industrial consortium. The dispute at the management level has already led to resentment among the partners of the DESERTEC Foundation and it negatively affects our reputation and trust. This is what the DESERTEC Foundation intends to avoid.
DESERTEC Foundation explicitly emphasises its understanding for the challenges the industrial consortium has to face. “It was always clear to us that our idea of producing electricity from the deserts on this earth was never an easy task and will always face extreme challenges. The employees of Dii have contributed enormously to the global transition towards renewable energy. However, after many months filled with a lot of discussions we had to conclude that the DESERTEC Foundation needs to preserve its independence. This is why Dii and DESERTEC Foundation will go separate ways which does not exclude future cooperation,” said Thiemo Gropp, Director of the DESERTEC Foundation.

CPV: Amonix Founder Speaks, Blames VCs, Laments Lack of Supply Chain

Greentech Media
It's tough times for concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) solar firms. GreenVolts went under and Amonix went quiet after shuttering its Nevada factory and laying off much of its staff last year. SolFocus is trying to sell itself and finding no buyers. Only Soitec seems to be developing new CPV systems, helped presumably, by a healthier balance sheet. (...) [Amonix's founder] Garboushian described CPV as an impoverished market with 100 megawatts deployed and $500 million invested over the last ten years, compared to the $50 billion received by the silicon industry. Garboushian said that what CPV needs is a supply chain, large-scale manufacturing, consolidation of the technology, and a big corporate backer instead of VCs looking to flip companies in a few years' time. (...) He called CPV bankable technology -- but it's hard to be considered bankable if the vendor is not going to be around in one year, let alone twenty.
A colleague and early employee at a rival CPV firm notes, "The CPV industry remains locked in a battle against declining costs with silicon technologies. The 2012 surge in cost reduction achieved by silicon may ultimately prove to be the death blow to today's commercial CPV providers, though there continue to be innovations in CPV cell efficiency and module design that could keep the technology alive in the highest-DNI environments. The big question is whether silicon will allow some breathing room in 2013 with the price increases that some predict, or whether further cost and price reductions in 2013 make the gap wholly uncrossable."

New solar cell records

The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Lab [Myles Steiner] has announced a world record of 31.1% conversion efficiency for a two-junction solar cell under one sun of illumination. (...) The previous record of 30.8% efficiency was held by Alta Devices. The tandem cell was made of a gallium indium phosphide cell atop a gallium arsenide cell, has an area of about 0.25 square centimeters and was measured under the AM1.5 global spectrum at 1,000 W/m2. It was grown inverted, similar to the NREL-developed inverted metamorphic multi-junction (IMM) solar cell -- and flipped during processing. The cell was covered on the front with a bilayer anti-reflection coating, and on the back with a highly reflective gold contact layer.

More info: Conversion-efficiency record for a two-junction solar cell measured under one-sun illumination

Sharp Corporation has achieved the world's highest solar cell conversion efficiency of 44.4%, using a concentrator triple-junction compound solar cell. These solar cells are used in a lens-based concentrator system that focuses sunlight on the cells to generate electricity. (...) Sharp's concentrator triple-junction compound solar cells use a proprietary technology that enables the efficient conversion of sunlight into electricity by means of a stack of three photo-absorption layers, the bottommost of which is made from InGaAs (indium gallium arsenide).To achieve a concentrating conversion efficiency of 44.4%, Sharp worked to widen the effective concentrator cell surface and ensure uniformity of width at the interface of the connecting concentrator cell and electrodes.

More info: Sharp Develops Concentrator Solar Cell with World's Highest Conversion Efficiency of 44.4%

As Europe's Dominance Wanes, Others Pick Up Solar PV

Renewable Energy World
Europe's role as the main driver for the global solar photovoltaics (PV) market is coming to an end, concludes the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) in its latest report.
"The results show clearly" that Europe's dominance is declining, said the trade body in its Global Market Outlook for Photovoltaics 2013-2017. Europe accounted for more than 70 percent of the world's new PV installations in 2011, while in 2012 this number was around 55 percent, the report found. In 2013, said EPIA, it "is almost certain" that the majority of new global PV capacity will be installed outside Europe, and that this trend will continue.

China Divides European Union in Fight Over Tariffs

NYTimes.com
Adroitly alternating the threat of a trade war with the lure of its huge import market, China appears to have driven a deep wedge between Germany and the rest of the European Union. (...) Ms. Merkel said Germany would lobby against duties on Chinese panels. As Chinese and European trade officials stare each other down over next week’s scheduled imposition of big tariffs on the $27 billion worth of solar panels China sells to Europe each year, Germany has come down on China’s side. Notably, Berlin is backing Beijing, even though Europe’s biggest producer of solar equipment, SolarWorld, is a German company that desperately wants the European Union to impose tariffs on the Chinese equipment. Unless the bloc backs off under German pressure, tariffs averaging nearly 50 percent would go into effect June 6, to punish China for the ostensible “dumping” of solar panels at below cost in Europe.
“Europe cannot succumb to blackmail — dumping is illegal, and the E.U. is obliged to defend itself by applying the international trade law,” said Milan Nitzschke, a spokesman for SolarWorld and the president of ProSun, a lobbying group for the European solar energy industry. But many other German companies, which rely more heavily than other European manufacturers on China as a significant market for their exports — whether Volkswagen cars or Siemens factory equipment or various other goods — fear that the dispute over solar panels could lead to an all-out trade war with China, which would be disastrous for their businesses. So far, the German government appears to agree.

China to delay preliminary decision on polysilicon import duties until after June 5

People's Daily Online
The Chinese government is expected to soon complete its antidumping and antisubsidy investigation into polysilicon imports from the US, the EU and South Korea, according to Chinese news portal People Daily, which cites an internal source from China’s Ministry of Commerce (Mofcom). According to the article, the investigation is almost complete; however, China will delay the announcement of its preliminary decision until after June 5, which is when the EU is due to announce whether it will apply provisional duties to Chinese silicon wafer, cell and module imports.
Mofcom opened the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations into US and South Korean polysilicon imports in mid-July 2012. In early November of the same year, Mofcom launched similar investigations into EU polysilicon imports.

SMA announces job cuts of over 1,000

pv-magazine
The world’s biggest photovoltaic inverter manufacturer has said that due to reduced solar support in Europe, it forecasts plummeting sales in 2013 of between €0.9 billion to €1.3 billion, compared to the predicted €1.3 billion to €1.5 billion expected to be achieved this year. "The growth impulses of the non-European photovoltaic markets are not sufficient to compensate for the expected decrease in European demand," stated Pierre-Pascal Urbon, speaker of SMA’s Managing Board.
(...) [T]he company has said it will gradually cut 450 of its worldwide workforce and terminate 600 of its temporary workers. It did not indicate which regions would be affected, however.
SMA has said it will not cut any jobs in its development business, and plans to invest over €100 million in R&D in the next year. "Developing completely new product platforms should reduce production costs significantly by 2014, while at the same time setting new standards for energy management," said the company in a statement released.

EU to Slap Tariffs on Chinese Solar Panels

Wall Street Journal
The European Union is poised to slap import duties on solar-panel equipment made in China, likely sparking one of the largest trade battles of recent decades. The duties are intended to protect European solar companies reeling from a flood of imported Chinese solar panels. Dozens of European manufacturers have shut production or gone out of business as solar-panel prices have plummeted; the industry says unfairly priced imports from China are the cause.
The import duties will average about 46%, according to people familiar with the matter, though different Chinese manufacturers will face different individual tariffs. The tariffs will cover panels and their main components, solar cells and silicon wafers.
(...) Solar-panel importers claim that duties of just 15% would cut European demand for solar panels by 85%. "If prices are artificially increased by punitive tariffs, the European solar market would simply come to a standstill with disastrous effects on green jobs," said Wouter Vermeersch, chief executive of Cleantec Trade, a Belgian importer of renewable-energy products.

Canada loses appeal over Ontario's FIT program

Trade - European Commission
Canada lost the appeal filed at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in a ruling that the local content requirement embedded within Ontario’s feed-in-tariff (FIT) program violates global trade rules.

The appeal was filed by the Canadian authorities at the WTO on February 5. The original ruling, published in December, supported claims made by Japan and the EU that the FIT program’s local content requirement unfairly discriminates against foreign companies.

After the ruling was published, Japan filed a cross appeal in the dispute involving “Canada – Renewable Energy” (WT/DS412), while the EU filed a cross appeal in the dispute involving “Canada – Feed-in Tariff Program” (WT/DS426). The Appellate Body report will have now to be adopted by the WTO Dispute Settlement Body within 30 days. Canada will have to present its plan to implement the ruling in the following months.

(...) Ontario’s local content requirement ensures that renewable energy installations built in Ontario only receive a FIT if 50 to 60 percent of the project’s equipment and services come from Ontario-based companies.

Renewable Energy Database - The World Bank

The World Bank
This website collects data on private participation in renewable energy in developing countries. It is part of the PPI Database and applies the same research methdology. The renewable energy section provides researchers with detailed, renewable-specific information on over 900 projects that were implemented between 1993 and 2011. The PPI Database is a flagship World Bank knowledge product widely used in research and analyses of infrastructure development. The purpose is to inform stakeholders on key trends regarding private in the renewable energy sector.

Japan to Become Largest Solar Market After China, BNEF Says

Bloomberg New Energy Finance
Japan will probably become the largest solar market in the world after China this year, boosted by an incentive program that offers above-market rates for energy from renewable sources. Commercial and utility-scale projects will boost solar installations to a range of 6.1 gigawatts to 9.4 gigawatts in 2013, exceeding an earlier forecast of 3.2 gigawatts to 4 gigawatts, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said in a research note. (...) The forecast reflects the push by Japan to find alternative sources of energy following the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, which prompted the closure of all but two of the nation’s nuclear reactors. Japan in July began offering incentives through feed-in tariffs to encourage investments in energy sources such as wind and solar.

World's 'Most Attractive' Incentives Will Bump Japan's Solar Status

SolarIndustryMag.com
The Japanese photovoltaic market is set to grow by 120% this year, with more than 5 GW of new capacity expected, according to a new report from IMS Research (part of IHS Inc.). Benefiting from the world's most attractive PV incentive policy, Japan's solar market is currently booming, with installations expected to exceed 1 GW in the first quarter alone, causing it to become the second largest market in 2013.
Japan's PV market currently benefits from a feed-in tariff (FIT) paying up to 42 yen/kWh [0.42€/kWh at today's exchange rate], even though this rate is likely to be reduced by approximately 10% beginning April 1.
"At 42 yen, Japan's FIT is by far the most attractive globally - overly generous, perhaps, which could lead to overheating of the market," explains Ash Sharma, senior director of solar research at IHS.
"And while a 10 percent reduction in tariffs is widely expected by industry players, this will have little effect on both internal rates of return and market demand," Sharma continues. "Furthermore, many systems that have already applied for the higher FIT are able to benefit from this rate of 42 yen, even if they are installed after April 1."
The report reveals that installations are estimated at over 1 GW in the first quarter of 2013 - the final quarter of Japan's fiscal year - and forecast to exceed 5 GW for the whole of 2013. This would see Japan leapfrog ahead of Germany, Italy and the U.S. to become the world's second largest PV market.