l'Actualité du Solaire

The forecasts for photovoltaic installations in China seem excessive, but at the same time they are logical:

because they anticipate demand that is currently unthinkable. However, the Chinese have generally shown that they are correctly anticipating future developments. They are logical because their aim is to occupy the market and make it difficult and unprofitable, thereby stifling foreign competitors.

This is illustrated by the "holes" that are increasingly being found in the American supply chain. It appears to be very solid for the production of panels; there is some silicon production capacity, but there are major gaps in the production of wafers and cells. The United States cannot be independent of Chinese production (at least in the current context). By occupying the market, the Chinese are making themselves indispensable.

Another aspect is the desire of certain entrepreneurs to democratise residential installations, with Teleson in Germany and Ensol in France seeking to capture interest in homeowners' equipment. The only problem is that demand was strong in the second half of 2022 and early 2023. Has it passed? Energy autonomy for homes does not seem feasible at the moment.

At a time when the photovoltaic world is wondering how to break out of its dependence on China,Chinese industry is creating a new dependence, that of energy storage. Not only have industries emerged, but they are beginning to conquer the world commercially , with phenomenal growth rates in their sales (doubling or tripling foreign sales in the^first half of 2023 compared with 2022). At the same time, Europeans are only planning to build factories, or have barely begun to do so. There is a gap of three to five years between the two industries. The photovoltaic tidal wave is a foretaste of what is to come with energy storage.

The Middle East is starting to install solar power plants with the gigawatt unit of measurement.

Vertical panels provide more energy than flat panels