l'Actualité du Solaire

Installations in France in the first quarter: connections are back ontrack

Soon, a 60-cell panel at 500 watts

How can photovoltaics reach the mass market?

The EPFL has evaluated the economic impact of renewable energies

Sunpower is short of cash.

New PV installations in France in the first quarter amounted to 246 MW, three times the amount at the beginning of 2017. The country has 8.3 GW of solar power installed (7.91 GW on the French mainland and 386 MW in overseas territories and Corsica).

EDF has published its position on the multiannual programming of Energy. It does not believe that electricity consumption will fall before twenty years and envisages an annual increase in demand of between 0% and +0.5%. The company confirms that it does not want to close other nuclear power stations than Fessenheim before 2029. EDF's management, which has just obtained the renewal of the licence to operate the plants for up to 40 years, considers that a certain number of plants could last up to 50 years and is very confident in its ability to operate all or part of its nuclear fleet safely for up to 60 years. This is a reaffirmation of EDF's official position.

The ceiling for the collection of participatory financing will rise from €2.5 million to €8 million. This concerns renewable energies and share, bond and mini-bond issues.

BHC Energy, Total's energy management subsidiary, which has been active in the field of erasure for three years, wants to make a place for itself on the French market for the aggregation of renewable energies. It is targeting 15% of the market.

French company Voltalia has signed a 20-year contract to sell electricity to Kenya from a 50 MWp solar power plant in western Kenya

Mini-grids seem to be the solution to bring electricity to the 1.1 billion people who have no access to it. The International Energy Agency estimates that they will bring electricity to a third of this population. The purchase of equipment that can generate income for rural villagers is seen as one of the most important ways to improve the bankability of rural mini-grids.

Rural mini-grid companies are now working with communities to understand what income-generating equipment (called productive uses of electricity) can make businesses viable.

A virtuous cycle is created when developers of rural mini-grids allow the purchase of equipment that will increase a customer's income. In an ideal situation, the increase in the customer's income covers more than the cost of operating the equipment. The resulting profit allows the customer to afford additional services powered by the mini-network.

This scenario is idealized.

The challenge is to develop productive uses. There may be many barriers to the adoption of equipment for productive uses. One such challenge is the limited ability of the customer to pay for the initial cost of the equipment. In some wealthy villages, the electricity generated by the mini-grid has reduced the cost of operating the equipment by a factor of four, and the acquisition of equipment has progressed very rapidly. In the poorest villages, however, it took several years of savings before customers were able to purchase appliances.

The financing itself will not lead to the adoption of equipment, as villagers are risk averse. Market access for new products or increased production must be provided. The biggest challenge in using electricity is the lack of commercial links or efficient supply or delivery chains. Enterprises that provide micro-grids often have to take over micro-businesses in order to start them up. These micro-grid providers seek partnerships with non-governmental organisations or private companies to provide expertise to initiate growth in production and demand.

Often electricity providers need to identify micro-enterprises that can generate value. They need to know the market in the local community.

Another aspect to be analysed is the uses: sometimes the electrical voltage is too low for the use of machines; sometimes the wells are too far from the village centre for pumps to be used; other times the water pipes to the fields have to be built or installed; sometimes the demand is for drinking water for food and there is no water left to water the fields.

The problem of electrification of areas that are not connected is diverse, varies according to the village communities, and is also linked to the local economic potential. Thus, it is not enough to provide micro-grids; the supply must be extended to many other factors that are unforeseen but which condition the use of energy.

PV Magazine of May 26th

Editor's note Our personal experience of several decades in Africa makes us fully subscribe to this analysis. And to go even further: Europeans are taking their knowledge to regions that have known nothing else for hundreds of years. Why would they want to change? How could they when they don't have the technical culture or the knowledge to set up machines or to repair a simple breakdown. Finally, the desire for economic development is often external to their conception. As an African told me this summer in the capital of Benin: "Africans are bon vivants. They don't want anything else" There is no desire for enrichment that we find in Asia...
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*Soon, a 60 cell panel at 500 watts

Soon, a 60 cell panel at 500 watts: China's Tongwei Solar plans to set up the production of bifacial heterojunction silicon cells with the help of the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology and Three Gorges Capital Holdings. Production capacity is expected to reach 10 GW within five years. The conversion rate of a 60 cell panel should exceed 23% and have a power of 500 watts.

Chinese manufacturers of monosilicon solar cells are switching their production to PERC. This technology offers a higher panel conversion rate. Manufacturers of multicrystalline should strive to follow suit. This shift has been made possible by Chinese OEMs offering machines that are much cheaper than imported ones, which speeds up the process.

Until now, customers of solar systems have been more curious about novelty and overlooking the initial difficulties of a new system. Now, the market will be more of a user-customer market that wants a fully finished product that is easy to buy, easy to use and worry-free. This transition between the two categories of customers is difficult to achieve, as many technologies have failed to take this step.

The solar energy market has evolved so rapidly that one could forget that mass distribution has not yet occurred. Dissemination among those curious about the novelty is between 2.5% and 13.5%. The next step is mass diffusion, but solar energy is a complex product to sell. This explains why the cost of acquiring a customer is around $4,000 according to GTM (in the United States). This means that solar energy is not ready to be adopted by Mr. Toutlemonde.

He wants a product that is economical, easy to buy, low-risk, and offers the assurance that homeowners will not be left with broken equipment. The market, too, has changed. Until now, the owner of the system was the roof rental company (in the United States). Now it is the homeowner. However, the owner has no insurance to guarantee production, which is usually included in the electricity rental and purchase contracts.

However, breakdowns or anomalies occur on the inverters, panels, and the wiring of mechanical and electrical connections. Over a period of twenty years, it is likely that something unexpected will happen to the systems. However, customers do not appreciate this because they do not know how PV systems work. It is up to them to detect a failure or an anomaly... Traditional customers want to buy solar energy without fear. This is a challenge for the industry. However, a customer who has had a bad experience has a bad memory of the installer and the brand of the faulty equipment. It is therefore necessary to develop a new relationship with the customer. The customer must be able to call a telephone number and, before the call is made, there must be monitoring of the installation, with an alert service in the event of an anomaly. Customers are not solar energy practitioners. They want it to work. It is on this condition that PV will develop.

GreenTech Media of 24 May.
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*The duck curve, the Nessie curve, the shark curve

There is the duck curve, the Nessie curve, and now the shark curve in developing countries. The latter differs from the daily evolution of electricity demand that we usually see

GTM Research estimates that within four years, solar panels will cost only $0.24 per watt, and trackers $0.70 per watt. This opens up new prospects for solar energy. The cost of $1 per watt has been observed in 2016-early 2017 in the United States. These costs could be temporarily increased by the introduction of tariffs.

The Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne has assessed the economic impact of renewable energies and energy efficiency measures in Switzerland up to 2050. If current policy were to continue, Switzerland's energy independence would reach 26%.

The deployment of locally available renewable energies (solar, wind, hydraulic, wood, etc.), combined with the improved performance of vehicles and buildings, is leading to a sharp drop in imports of fossil fuels (fuel oil, petrol, diesel, natural gas). The level of energy independence would thus fall from 26% today to around 72% in 2050.

Another consequence is that energy efficiency creates jobs: the number of jobs in energy-related sectors in Switzerland would be about 35% higher in the "new energy policy" scenario than in the other two scenarios. The transport sector benefits from an increase in jobs, thanks to a modal shift in favour of public transport. On the other hand, a decrease in employment in the automotive sector is expected in connection with the deployment of electric vehicles, which require significantly less maintenance than petrol cars.

These results are based on a sectoral approach for activities directly related to energy production and distribution. The estimate of jobs induced by the energy transition is based on an "input-output matrix" approach and takes into account the structural impacts on the economy at current energy prices.

The annual costs of the future energy system are estimated at around CHF 24 billion per year (excluding taxes), irrespective of the scenario chosen. These figures include the cost of infrastructure (networks, production units, etc.), the costs of energy efficiency measures, as well as the cost of imports of fossil fuels (petroleum products, natural gas, electricity).

The differences in costs between the scenarios studied are less than 10% (see Figure 3), which, given the margin of uncertainty, does not make it possible to state that one option is more expensive than the other. However, the scenarios that depend on fossil resources present greater uncertainty about their future cost, as they are subject to oil and gas prices, whose long-term evolution is more difficult to predict than that of technologies.

This result is not really surprising," says Professor François Maréchal of the IPESE laboratory. Renewable energies coupled with energy efficiency certainly generate additional investment costs, but these are offset by a drop in the import bill for fuels and combustibles. In addition, renewable energies (notably photovoltaic solar energy) and energy efficiency solutions (electric vehicles, etc.) will be less and less expensive. »

EPFL of 24 May.
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* 35 German organisations call for protection against Chinese imports

Nearly 35 German industrialists and research institutes are asking their government for an industrial strategy to maintain a domestic solar industry. They are asking the government to conserve and develop solar technology to contribute to Germany's future energy. Fraunhofer is behind this request.

The standardisation body TÜV Rheinland has expressed doubts about the cybersecurity measures of inverter manufacturers after hacking commercially available photovoltaic inverters "within minutes". This is all the more alarming as the storage systems communicate with the inverter. By hacking into inverters, cybercriminals could gain access to battery management systems and control them to operate in a dangerous manner. On a larger scale, it may be possible to attack the entire power grid, causing massive power fluctuations.

There are two techniques for absorbing and regulating renewable energy: electrical storage using pumped heat, and battery storage. These two technologies are very different. Each has its limits.

China's Tongwei will deliver 55,000 tonnes of polycrystalline silicon to LONGi by 2020. Tongwei estimates that this contract will provide it with a net profit of RMB 132m ($20.6m) in 2018, RMB 694m ($108m) in 2019 and RMB 992m ($155m) in 2020.

This follows LONGi's intention to triple its monosilicon wafer production in 2020. LONGi has signed a supply contract with Daqo New Energy for 39,600 tons of silicon wafers for a total amount of $787 million.

LONGi's expansion policy should enable it to become the world's leading manufacturer of monosilicon wafers in 2018 with 28 GW, whereas GCL Poly is only aiming for a capacity of 23 GW of monocrystalline wafers.

PV Magazine of 24 May.
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* Sunpower short of cash

Sunpower obtained a $300 million loan from Crédit Agricole to repay a loan maturing on June 1. The company is in financial difficulty as its cash position decreased by $200 million in the first quarter of 2018 alone. At that date, it only held $261 million in cash and cash equivalents. Official documents indicate that the company is not expected to have sufficient cash to repay a loan maturing in 2018 (2/3 of which is owed to Total, its parent company) and to pay operating expenses.