l'Actualité du Solaire

The year 2024 was expected to see very strong growth in photovoltaic installations, with falling panel prices reducing the cost of construction. The new year should confirm the exceptional growth rate of 2023. This was the most predictable, and the most likely, given the competition between panel manufacturers fighting each other to sell their products.

Despite this high probability, European and global research consultancies are claiming that the world is entering a period of low installation and even stagnation for several years. This seems paradoxical. Is there a reaction against the electrification of the world? Are we waiting for the new generation of panels that will replace TOPCon? Are we coming up against physical, moral, political and environmental constraints that limit installations? Is there a backlash against the recent environmental movement? Is this just caution at the start of the year?

Summary:

The leading player in the move towards renewable energies is becoming more cautious and even reticentSolarPower Europe, which has guided and pushed European leaders towards climate protection measures, is changing its tune. Perhaps because of the adverse conditions that have arisen.

At the same time, another consultancy is predicting that global installations will stabilise over the next four years WoodMackenzie is even more radical, predicting no growth in installations!

Overcapacity in panel production will be quickly resolved by halting P-PERCtype production: in the event of a global slowdown in installations, Chinese manufacturers will react quickly to stabilise prices. All that needs to be done is to shut down the old production lines

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The text

The leading player in the shift towards renewable energies is becoming more cautious and even reticent for the period 2024-2028

SolarPower Europe's forecasts for the years 2024 to 2026, of a growth rate of 10% to 15% per year, are intriguing. Not because of the figures themselves, but because of the role this organisation has played in promoting renewable energies, raising the European Commission's targets and stimulating efforts to establish a Europe free of fossil fuels. This is all the more surprising given that solar energy has grown at a rate of 40% a year on the Old Continent over the last three years. It is true that the period had been favourable for photovoltaic installations because of the war in Ukraine, the desire to free themselves from Russian gas, and the soaring prices of gas and electricity. Europeans had been looking for ways to reduce energy consumption through electricity generation, energy storage and heat pump heating. The economic downturn, linked to a fall in the price of electricity, gas and oil, encouraged people to stop looking for alternatives, as the price of basic energy sources had become acceptable once again.

For this organisation, which is known for its activism and for always proposing to do more and better for the environment, to reduce its immediate objectives, it must have perceived a change in trend that is difficult to fight or even impossible to confront. Should we see the source of this reduced ambition in its unsuccessful demands? It is still calling for the creation of a favourable environment for investment in photovoltaics, the improvement of grid infrastructure and flexibility, the rethinking of planning and implementation procedures, and the creation of a new energy market.vision of planning and administrative authorisation procedures, diversification of the continent's solar supply chain, intensification of training and deployment of workers.

These proposals suggest organising national and European economies differently; creating a different environment that is more conducive to renewable energies. There is no doubt that SolarPower Europe has benefited from a favourable economic climate, and above all from a European Commission that is prepared to entrust environmentalists with a large number of decisions.cologists with a large number of decisions in the field of ecology, climate protection and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The association realises that it's not that simple, that it's not enough to proclaim objectives, or to decide and get people to decide that30 GW of photovoltaic production capacity is needed by 2025 for this to be achieved, that a certain number of circumstances are needed which are no longer present at the moment. The organisation has to come to terms with this.

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At the same time, another consultancy is predicting that global installations will stabilise over the next four years.

At the same time as SolarPower Europe is coming to the end of its experiment, the research body (Wood Mackenzie) is coming to the same conclusion, but without the environmentalist ideology. It states that global solar installations will stagnate over the period 2024-2028, whereas over the previous four years (2019-2023) the rate of growth had been 28% per year, with a 56% increase in 2023 alone.

Once again, this forecast is questionable! The consultancy justifies this forecast by saying that the industry will pass its inflection point with a slowdown in growth! What is true is that the world is emerging from a period of inflation in components other than panels, that the rise in interest rates is making power plant construction projects much more expensive, and that new installations everywhere are coming up against the scarcity of large areas of building land.There is a shortage of manpower everywhere, and despite concerns about the climate, the high rate of construction in recent years calls for a pause.

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The overcapacity in panel production will soon be resolved by halting production of the P-PERC type.

This pause comes at a time when the Chinese industry, which was anticipating sustained growth in demand, is completing the installation of new production units. When the Chinese realise that sales of their panels are slower than expected, when they see that panel prices have returned to cost levels and that competition is still fierce, the P-type panel production units will be shut down (it is said that this changeover is already well under way). The switch to TOPCon will be accelerated. The supply-demand balance will be quickly restored. Prices will stabilise rapidly, probably during the second quarter of 2024. This will happen with the help of China's political leaders, who will use the surplus panel production capacity to continue modernising their economy, with a gradual slowdown in the use of coal and a switch to solar electricity.

There won't be the big "explanation" between Chinese industrialists that some are predicting, envisaging a fight to the death between them. They are too aware of their interdependence within Chinese society to go too far. Nevertheless, the weakest manufacturers, those who have been slow to switch from P-type to N-type technology, could well disappear the Chinese way: smoothly, without a sudden stop, without any major catastrophe.

At the dawn of 2024, forecasts point to a stagnation in global installations. This is strange, because the spectacular fall in the price of panels was supposed to herald an acceleration in construction. Who's wrong?

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