TSEP#160 Global Market Development 2024 – A Year of Solar Superlatives?

The times in the solar industry are very exciting and pretty
difficult at the same time: with 413GW annual installations
worldwide, the latest edition of BloombergNEF´s 4Q 2023 Global PV
Market Outlook points out that solar installations more than
doubled in only 2 years. At the same time, with record-low prices
for modules, being a manufacturer is becoming increasingly
difficult, even though the demand for solar is hug and constantly
growing. At COP28, state leaders agreed on tripling the share of
renewable energies by 2030. At the same time, solar faces
structural difficulties such as grid constraints, labor
shortages, price cannibalization, looming trade wars and
government regulations that don’t keep pace with the industry´s
needs in order to accelerate solar deployment. About those
astonishing and at the same time controverse developments, we
spoke to Jenny Chase.


Timeline:




02:14 We saw at the latest numbers which BloombergNEF
published that solar installations have more than doubled in
the last two years. Will this skyrocketing development to go
on like this until the end of this decade, or even forever?




06:56 Global module prices: Following the latest trends, we
now reached a new all-time low of 12,4 ct/W for solar
modules. How are those prices going to effect both the global
manufacturing landscape and the deployment of solar
worldwide?




09:29 According to your numbers, in the US, modules are more
expensive, at a cost of 25 ct/W. Why do we have a different
situation there?




15:28 Price cannibalization: To what extent can batteries,
electrolysers and flexibility solve this problem?




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podcast@thesmartere.com