The Israeli Planning Administration has approved a new set of regulations for energy storage. Set out as a national outline plan, the new regulation deals with the capacities of different energy storage facilities, where they can be built and under what conditions.

“The plan will allow the deployment of storage units next to PV plants, gas stations and houses. That will help regulate energy consumption under high demand,” the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure said in a statement. “On the backdrop of the war in Gaza, energy storage can maintain energy for few hours under emergency conditions.”

According to the plan's original papers from January 2023, storage of up to 600 kWh can be built on any land, under some caveats. Bigger storage facilities of up to 5 MWh are allowed on any land, with the exceptions of agricultural land, scenic land, protected land or in the vicinity of a river.

Larger storage facilities, of up to 16 MWh, will only be allowed on land with specific uses. Among permitted lands are those for industrial use, parking lots and public buildings. More extensive storage of more than 16 MWh is not regulated in this program.

In addition, the new regulation sets environmental terms, safety terms, and water safety terms.

“Storage infrastructure improves the potential of renewable energy use,” the ministry added. “This regulation plan was made to support it, as based on it, permits for construction of such facilities can be issued.”

Taipei’s Nangang Exhibition Center hosted another Energy Taiwan event this week, combined with Net-Zero Taiwan, focusing on reducing the emissions of the island’s many industries. The show comprised 350 exhibitors and more than 24,000 attendees over three days, which the organizers say amounts to 28% growth over last year. Simon Wang, President of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council, also noted that around 20% of attendees were at the event for the first time, denoting a growing importance for companies looking at net-zero strategies and ways to implement renewable energy.

Energy storage

Energy storage was front and center throughout the event, with companies from various background exhibiting batteries. Many of these are focused on commercial solutions for large, energy hungry industries to maximize their renewable energy uptake. And these often came with sophisticated energy management solutions –  illustrating Taiwan’s position as a leader in software development.

The show also saw plenty of talk about large-scale storage, and hopes that changes to legislation might soon drive bigger demand for residential energy storage as well. Battery suppliers were also keen to demonstrate their latest fire safety innovations, including cell level monitoring, automated water and chemical fire suppression systems and the somewhat simpler approach of encasing the whole battery system in concrete, which supplier TCC says would be able to contain fire at temperatures above one thousand degrees, and also bring other advantages in system longevity.

Taiwan will still be reliant on imports for its energy storage plans, with many players sourcing fully made batteries from abroad, or only assembling cells into packs locally. One company, Formosa Smart Energy, is looking to bring battery cell manufacturing to Taiwan. President Hui-Chi Liu told pv magazine that the company is working to bring 2.1 GWh of battery cell capacity online by the middle of 2024, with plans to later expand this to 5 GWh. At its booth in the exhibition, the company also had innovative approaches on show to battery recycling and solid-state batteries based on a mixed ceramic/polymer electrolyte.

Solar manufacturing

Taiwan’s solar manufacturing industry has seen little growth lately, faced with heavy competition from producers in mainland China. The cell and module makers at the show, however, shared a positive outlook, with expectation of more orders from domestic projects, as well as strong exports to the United States – where prices have remained high enough for Taiwan’s manufacturers to be competitive.

One manufacturer stated that it is also examining the opportunity of bringing manufacturing capacity online in the US, but sees some signs that the Inflation Reduction Act, which has brought with it a flood of factory announcements across the US, may have passed its peak. Their calculations show that the US could have 60 GW of module manufacturing capacity up and running by 2026, without much more than 40 GW of annual domestic demand to serve.

On the technology side, these manufacturers report that reliability, rather than the latest technology is the name of the game for now. All of the manufacturers pv magazine spoke with at the event are in the process of switching passivated emitter rear contact (PERC) manufacturing to the latest high efficiency tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) technology, by the middle of next year.

From pv magazine 10/23

Solar installations in India have been steadily rising since March 2023. As per official numbers, India installed 9 GW (AC) of solar capacity from January to August 2023, which is around 12 GW of DC capacity, according to estimates. These installation numbers reflect many projects that were originally supposed to be built in 2021 and 2022 but were hindered by high equipment prices.

A government-approved relaxation of restrictions imposed by the approved list of models and manufacturers (ALMM) – which indicates which products can be included in government-backed projects – has accelerated Indian PV installations, helped also by falling module prices.

The start of 2023 looked a bit gloomy for India, compared with the usual pattern of a strong first quarter each calendar year. Module price and availability prevented many projects from being completed. In May, after the SNEC solar trade show in China, the market turned around. Module prices, excluding import duties, quickly dropped below $0.18 per watt (W) and continued to fall, reaching less than $0.15/W in the July to September period. Installers took the chance to complete pending projects, driving the current installation boom, which is likely to continue through the first three months of next year.

Rising imports

Local developers have grabbed the opportunity offered by module price declines to order in bulk. We believe that will lead to a strong upswing in module imports in the final three months of this year and the first three months of 2024. These modules will go into projects in the first part of next year and possibly even further out, depending on how legislation evolves.

Current regulation allows for government-tendered projects to include modules not named on the ALMM list, until March 31, 2024. Modules imported before that deadline but not installed will not be eligible for installation on government-aided projects. Developers are trying to persuade the government to extend that deadline by another three months, to give them more flexibility in terms of orders and imports.

Expanding production

Module manufacturers have ramped up India’s solar panel output, with annual production capacity expansions driven by national local-content policies. Annual module manufacturing capacity in India has already crossed the 20 GW mark but the factory utilization rate remains below 50% to date. That means, with local manufacturers having brought their prices closer to the cost of imported modules (plus basic customs duty), they will not be able to meet demand.

The fall in imported solar cell prices has resulted in a strong spike of cell imports over the past few months, which is likely to boost solar module-assembly factory utilization rates. The share of Indian-manufactured modules in new installations is expected to increase accordingly, especially after March 2024.

The combined generation capacity of imported and locally manufactured modules is still not enough to supply the 60 GW (AC) or so of solar projects that the Central Electricity Authority reports as being at some stage of construction.

Projects corresponding to more than two thirds of this capacity are unlikely to obtain modules before March 31, 2024. Hence, most developers of government-backed projects will need to procure modules included on the ALMM list. Such constraints on module procurement put the solar project pipeline at risk of delays.

In parallel with the government-backed PV project pipeline that dominates the Indian solar market, there is also growing interest among commercial and industrial electricity consumers seeking to procure solar power via on-site systems or private power purchase agreements. As these are not limited by ALMM list requirements, these segments of the solar industry are in position to benefit from possible module inventories in 2024. India’s PV deployment is, hence, set to diversify further across different market segments.

Given the high number of PV projects waiting to be commissioned and the level of module imports expected for the rest of the year, S&P Global Commodity Insights forecasts India will have installed 20 GW of solar this year. Solar installations in 2024 could be even higher than our forecast, depending upon government policy and possible further ALMM relaxations. Deadline extensions are possible, as we have seen previously in India’s solar power market.

About the author: Josefin Berg is an associate director for solar research at S&P Global Commodity Insights, leading a team that covers forecasts, trends, and company strategy in the downstream solar market. Her focus areas include developers and engineering, procurement and construction business strategies, demand for PV in emerging markets, and the role of solar in the power mix. With more than 12 years of industry experience, she writes reports on PV markets and trends and regularly speaks at industry events.

The turbulent weather seen in recent months across Europe and beyond – crippling heatwaves, thunderous storms, and catastrophic floods – has once again highlighted the need to tackle the climate crisis by reducing our carbon footprint, and to transition to net zero as quickly as is humanly possible.

The United Kingdom government’s U-turn on some of its net zero commitments has placed an even greater emphasis on the role local authorities can and must play in creating a cleaner, healthier environment.

Members of the Key Cities network have shown a high level of ambition and proactive action in terms of achieving net zero, with many developing strategies, forming strong partnerships between community and private enterprise, and delivering successful projects across various sectors.

Crucial to these efforts is the development of sustainable energy. One technology which has attracted the attention of our Key Cities members has been solar power. Along with wind, solar offers the promise of renewable, sustainable energy and the creation of the infrastructure needed to collect and channel it is almost certain to lead to the creation of thousands of new, well-paid jobs.

Like many people, members of the Key Cities network were interested to hear, earlier in the year, of government plans to back technology which would, in effect, collect energy from the sun out in space using satellite-mounted panels and beam it back down to Earth.

It will doubtless take years to develop but as scientists work on this and other schemes to develop much-needed sustainable energy security, closer to home, Key Cities members have been making their own contribution toward greening our energy and power networks.

Findings

As spelled out in our “Levelling Up, Emissions Down: Accelerating Net Zero across the Key Cities” report, the United Kingdom has made significant progress in lowering carbon dioxide emissions in the last 30 years, with a reduction of 73.4% between 1990 and 2021, largely as a result of the closure of coal fired power stations and increased investment in low-carbon energy sources such as solar, wind, and nuclear energy.

There is still much work to be done but many of our network members have already embraced the challenge of creating more sustainable energy solutions. As well as having a significant environmental impact in these areas, these examples highlight the potential of solar power, should it be adopted more widely across the country. The English city of Wolverhampton has worked with the its local National Health Service hospital trust to install a 6.9 MW solar farm on a former landfill site to direct renewable energy to the hospital, meeting 70% of its electricity needs. In the English town of Blackpool, a major solar farm located alongside the city’s airport will provide sustainable energy to a nearby business enterprise zone.

In the Welsh city of Newport, a partnership with the Sustainable Communities Wales initiative driven by environmental charity Severn Wye and the Wales Cooperative has ensured 2,000 solar panels will be installed at the Geraint Thomas National Velodrome. This is expected to reduce the city council’s carbon emissions by 348 tons per year and will generate 1,973,MWh of electricity annually.

Funding secured through United Kingdom government body the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) has enabled the English metropolitan borough of Salford to install 2,562 solar panels on 21 public buildings across the city, generating 778 MWh per year. Four sites have also had battery energy storage systems installed and the 3.79 hectare Little Hulton solar farm, also funded through the PSDS, will triple energy generation.

These are encouraging examples but challenges remain. According to national electricity network operator National Grid, the United Kingdom government’s target of 50 GW of offshore wind by 2030 will require six times the amount of transmission infrastructure that was delivered in the past 30 years.

Local projects also require changes to the grid. One city in the Key Cities network is aiming to deliver 300 MW of renewable energy to meet its net zero targets; to date it has delivered 50 MW, with another 100 MW in the pipeline. Without an upgrade to the grid, however, it is unable to deliver more than this until post-2028 at the earliest, which will result in the city being unable to meet its net zero targets.

Economic benefits

The path to net zero is not only being driven by a need to address the encroaching climate crisis. Net zero solutions increasingly offer returns to the economy, over and above the economic benefits of preventing global warming. For example, renewable energy generation increasingly competes in cost terms with fossil fuels while the prices of solar and onshore wind have fallen by 88% and 68%, respectively, since 2010.

Investing in net zero solutions will have a range of other economic and social benefits, including job creation, improved energy security, and improved public health due to a fall in air pollution. Clearly, the road to net zero is not only essential to prevent climate change, but also to support the economies of places around the United Kingdom.

While local authorities are making significant contributions to achieve net-zero, greater autonomy through devolved powers and funding would significantly expedite progress and help overcome challenges such as capacity building across councils and the clarification of roles in the national net-zero transition. This is where the power of the network comes in, enabling Key Cities to harness the talents of both the community and the private sector, leading the charge towards a sustainable energy network and a climate-conscious future.

About the author: Cllr John Merry is chair of the Key Cities network and deputy mayor of Labour-led Salford City Council.

From pv magazine 10/23

At the end of August, the Italian Council of State issued two different rulings. The institution is an important legal and administrative consultative body in Italy, with jurisdiction over the acts of all administrative authorities. With the two rulings, the Council of State effectively said that agrivoltaic projects cannot be treated as conventional ground-mounted PV plants.

“The two sentences outline a substantially different regulatory framework for agrivoltaics and traditional photovoltaics,” said Andrea Sticchi Damiani, a lawyer who was involved in the matter. “The administrative justice has filled the last gaps so the legislative framework for agrivoltaics is now completely clear.”

The two rulings relate to two projects in the Italian province of Brindisi, with generation capacities of 6 MW and 110 MW. The province is in the region of Apulia, which has one of the highest PV adoption levels in Italy.

“The criteria that were used previously, such as the consumption of territory with respect to normal agricultural use, is an objection that can no longer be raised,” Sticchi Damiani said. “They are not hectares taken away from agricultural areas. On the contrary, they are often formerly-unproductive areas that will become productive again.”

Italian ambition

REM Tec, an Italian agrivoltaic project developer with an international focus, describes itself as the first in the world to develop sustainable projects for solar energy production in the agricultural sector. The company’s French CEO, Ronald Knoche, says the primary hurdle for agrivoltaics in Italy is the lack of a clear definition of the technology.

France codified an agrivoltaic definition into law in March. While some details are missing, the definition specifies that land occupied by agrivoltaics should primarily be used for agricultural purposes.

Legal developments in Italy are slower even if commercial plans for agrivoltaics are more ambitious. In April 2021, the last Italian government, led by Mario Draghi until October last year, presented a €1.1 billion ($1.17 billion) plan to deploy a little over 1 GW of advanced agrivoltaic systems by June 2026. The installations must include “innovative” mounting solutions that place solar modules above the ground without compromising the continuity of agricultural operations.

“The Italian government has two approaches: a generic definition and a better way of doing it,” said REM Tec’s Knoche. “I don’t think it is the right way forward. Many stakeholders are accusing the local industry of doing ground-mounted agrivoltaic systems, ignoring the agriculture and landscape.”

He conceded that advanced agrivoltaic projects are expensive but suggested that the €1.1 billion fund is a way to support research activity seeking to establish best practice and avoid problems. Knoche mentioned Taiwan, which was a leader in agrivoltaic development before the Covid-19 pandemic. Concerning agrivoltaics, Knoche said, “It is now forbidden, as the industry was not doing projects very well.”

Follow the money

The REM Tec chief said the way to understand the power dynamic between agriculture and energy production is to follow the money.

Discussing the returns available from the two revenue streams, Knoche said, “A hectare will grant €100,000 for power production and as little as €2,000 for wheat agricultural production. This creates an imbalance, leading to some farmers receiving offers for land at €10,000 per hectare per year, from energy producers. It is an incentive to switch from agricultural production to power production: the income is higher and the risks are less. The Italian government seems to have partially understood it.”

Knoche said that agrivoltaics could account for the third-largest share of Italian PV power production in the future, behind traditional ground-mounted systems on industrial sites, and residential rooftop installations.

“Panel prices are decreasing, the knowledge about agrivoltaics is increasing, the economies of scale are such that the business models are changing, with agrivoltaics being one of the new business models,” he added.

The Joint Research Centre, the European Commission’s science and knowledge service, this year reported that agrivoltaic projects with 20 GW to 30 GW of generation capacity will have applied for administrative authorization under the national permitting process in Italy.

REM Tec worked with Italian standardization body UNI, national research agency ENEA, and the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore to draw up UNI/PdR 148:2023, a set of guidelines for the implementation of agrivoltaic projects.

The UNI standard, which incorporates existing regulations, has no practical application but proponents suggest it could facilitate permitting processes for local governments in Italy as well as administrative decisions for the country’s grid network authority, the GSE.

Land use

A Canadian inventor, Antoine Paulus, said new agrivoltaic designs are essential to decrease land usage. His own invention, dynamic building-integrated PV (DBIPV), is a mobile and removable system based on existing technology.

“My concept is based on shades with PV panels inserted in them, strung over the land with steel cables from mobile platforms at a higher elevation, to allow farm machines and livestock to pass under without obstruction,” explained Paulus. “With mobile platforms at the two ends, it is possible to stretch the shades over any area and close and move them or relocate them.”

DBIPV makes use of thin, light, and flexible PV panels, such as fiberglass-based silicon PV or organic modules. The steel cables are similar to those used in cranes. Paulus said his concept is safe as the units can be folded quickly in the event of an emergency.

“The fact that they are used in smaller clusters and each panel is in a sleeve separate from the other is another advantage,” Paulus added.

The Canadian inventor said that because the concept has not been tested yet, it is difficult to provide a levelized cost of energy estimate. Paulus said the utility of his invention is a no-brainer as it makes perfect commercial sense.

Alessandra Scognamiglio, coordinator of a task force on sustainable agrivoltaics at ENEA, said that similar, integrated projects have been considered before in the field of building-integrated photovoltaics but were not successful simply because of the effort required to create demand for them. “The market is generally not ready for innovation,” she said.

Apart from collaborating on the UNI standard, ENEA continues to research agrivoltaic projects. By the end of the year, it aims to release an online map that will assist with the selection of appropriate locations, based on factors that can positively affect co-located agricultural and energy production projects. Scognamiglio said the map would not include areas with restrictions on land use for PV.

The researcher, who also serves as president of sustainable agrivoltaic association AIAS, added that Italian authorities have so far placed little value on carrying out research activity on agrivoltaics, instead preferring to invest European Union funds in single projects.

“Private entrepreneurs are doing the research themselves, through universities and other entities,” said Scognamiglio. “The UNI standard is part of this context, a context where a clear regulatory framework is lacking.”

In June 2022, the Draghi government published guidelines for agrivoltaic projects but since the relevant minister did not sign them, they still do not actually have a legal basis.

“In October 2022, the government said it would make the necessary changes to the guidelines after discussions with operators,” explained Scognamiglio. “This has not happened.”

Legal position

Addressing Sticchi Damiani’s claim the legislative framework for agrivoltaics is now completely clear, Scognamiglio said that the lawyer is correct from a legal perspective.

“Any plaintiff who goes to court is now expected to win. This is not to say that a cultural gap has been filled because the word ‘agrivoltaic' is new, and it has not yet been defined,” she added.

That process is likely to lead to lawsuits or disjointed legal development. Scognamiglio warned that Italian regions have already started writing their own local guidelines on agrivoltaic installations in response to the number of requests they have received, and the scale of some of the projects. The Piedmont region, in northern Italy, published a principle for agrivoltaic projects in farming lands with high agronomic interest. The so-called “principle of continuity” requires agricultural production in the three years following the agrivoltaic installation to be at least 70% of the value of the farm output in the five productive years before deployment.

Shortly after Piedmont published its guidelines, the Italian government released a draft decree on “eligible areas,” a requirement of the soon-to-be-passed European renewables directive Red III. Scognamiglio confirmed that the constraints of the Italian draft decree would apply to some agrivoltaic projects: those on the ground, and inter-row PV systems. “It is most probably because agrivoltaics are still not credible enough to agricultural stakeholders, as the real difference between agri-PV and ground-mounted PV is not defined,” she said.

Industry pushback

Trade association Italia Solare says that the PV sector is being called on to achieve stringent renewables capacity targets. It believes that a preference for elevated systems would be detrimental to efforts to achieve these targets, as only 1 GW of annual installations, with high costs, could be achieved in the country with this technology. It notes that such arrays would also have a significant impact on the Italian landscape.

Rolando Roberto, vice president of Italia Solare, has argued constraints that include a preference for elevated systems could be viewed as counter-productive.

“Steel is no innovation,” he said. “Elevated systems with fixed maximal height sometimes do not make sense. Ministerial guidelines and other regulatory guidance documents qualify systems with minimum heights of 2.1 meters and 1.3 meters for agricultural crops and livestock activities, respectively.”

The PV association also said the sector must work on agricultural productivity data, analyzing different crops and climates. “Only when data are available can percentage constraints be introduced,” it explained. “Agrivoltaics must gain experience through experimentation, research, and development. In the meantime, however, it is necessary to allow the installation of efficient and truly achievable systems, in addition to experimental plants, even without the support of European subsidies.”

Perspective of farmers

At the other end of the debate, farming unions are asking for more restrictions on agrivoltaics. Coldiretti wants its members to be driving agrivoltaic deployment as, it argues, they will prioritize continuing food production on such sites.

“The integration of energy production in agricultural activities should not upset those balances that qualify agricultural income,” said Stefano Masini, environment and land manager at Coldiretti. “The sizing of installations should not depend on economies of scale or industrial logic, as is the case with ground-mounted photovoltaics.”

Masini argued that investments in agrivoltaic projects could be seen as a loophole to incentivize ground-mounted PV on agricultural soil. “According to data from the 2014 GSE statistical report, the area of panels installed on the ground at that date amounted to 13,877 hectares, of which 4,000 were in Puglia alone,” he said.

He said the total land requirements of ground-mounted solar projects meant that figure translated into around 30,000 to 35,000 hectares removed from agricultural use.

Scale

“The actual figure, however, is semi-unknown since, especially in recent years, there has been a sharp increase in incentive-free large-scale PV investment,” added Masini

The Coldiretti rep said that if utility scale projects were predominantly found on agricultural land, an additional 70,000 to 90,000 hectares could be taken away from agricultural use, equal to about 0.3% to 0.5% of current agricultural land.

Masini said he favors tailor-made installations that could increase farmer competitiveness but he cautions that there are significant complexities. Funds, which in some cases come from European Union programs, often have an expiration date.

“The need to make agrivoltaics a technology that can easily and quickly access energy incentives probably does not fit well with the complexity that requires an approach of real integration between energy and [agriculture],” he said.

Agrivoltaic expansion could also inflate land rental values, said Coldiretti, which claimed rental prices could rise by 40%. “The average bid for land for photovoltaic or agrivoltaic fields is four to five times higher than the normal market value. But, in some cases, it is as high as 10 to 15 times. It depends on the location of the land.”

Italy finds itself 10 to 12 years behind other nations when it comes to renewables development and installation figures, thanks to a distrust of renewable energy generation versus more recognized forms of energy production, primarily nuclear, gas, and “clean coal.”

Finally, though, acceptance of the necessity of clean power is dawning. Italy will need to add 50 GW of solar generation capacity by 2030 as part of 70 GW of new clean power facilities needed to meet European targets.

A notoriously sluggish permitting system has resulted in less than 1.5 GW per year of new photovoltaics, with around 800 MW added in 2020 and 940 MW in 2021, rising to around 2.5 GW last year. Residential solar, at least, has advanced markedly in the last two years.

The government has also set a target of sourcing 55% of Italian-generated electricity from renewables by 2050.

Solar has been boosted by regional residential-PV incentives and a move to simplify permitting for clean energy plants under the procedura abilitativa semplificata (PAS), which came into force in April 2022.

Italy’s European Union-funded, post-Covid economic recovery plan, the Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR) – approved in July 2021 – allocated €1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) for the installation of solar on agricultural buildings, referred to as “agrisolar,” and €1.1 billion for agrivoltaics. None of the PNRR funds were allotted to conventional, ground-mounted solar parks.

That was mainly because of permit delays for conventional ground-mounted solar. While the PNRR millions fired the starting gun on agrivoltaic projects with a generation capacity of more than 1 MW, the drawn-out nature of the “autorizzazione unica” central permitting process for photovoltaics, and the diverse planning policies of local governments, have led to inevitable development hold-ups for ground-mounted solar.

Project clusters

The PAS has at least shaken things up, with many projects that were awaiting autorizzazione unica approval withdrawn and resubmitted as clusters of smaller sites, with generation capacities no larger than 20 MW in order to be eligible for the simpler permitting process. Numerous projects, in fact, have reappeared with a capacity ceiling of 14 MW, as securing connection to the medium-voltage grid is far easier than to the high-voltage network applicable to larger sites.

The raised cost of agrivoltaics reflects the fact panels cannot be as tightly packed as in conventional ground-mounted sites, due to the requirements of the crops planted under and between them.

Expensive

INTEC Energy Solutions' experience is that agrivoltaic installations with panels installed anywhere from 2.1 m to 6 m off the ground require 30% to 60% more expense than ground-mounts, when it comes to their racking and installation cost. That is because more steel is needed and work is performed at height.

Working at height and removing the extra dust generated by farm vehicles adds 20% to 40% to agrivoltaic array operation and maintenance costs, versus ground-mounted sites.

The lower panel density means agrivoltaics require 10% to 40% more expense to generate electricity and an additional €20 to €50 payment per hectare is needed to cover the cost of mandatory statements by the farmer proving the continuation of agricultural production at such facilities.

Those expenses ensure agrivoltaic sites are, on average, around 40% more expensive than ground-mounted facilities.

At INTEC, we are keenly following the progress of agrivoltaic-related legislation in Italy and also monitoring the details of projects our customers have submitted in pursuit of PNRR incentives.

There is great enthusiasm about the potential of agrivoltaics for Italy, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict has emphasized not only the European Union’s dependence on Russian gas – triggering a general energy crisis – but also a reliance on certain foodstuffs sourced from Ukraine.

The two problems must be tackled hand in hand and agrivoltaics represent an ideal method of ensuring agriculture and energy production coexist without imbalance.

Getting the policy right is essential to ensuring the nascent agrivoltaic and agrisolar sectors do not become another missed opportunity, with practically-inaccessible incentives for farmers.

Detail

At the time of writing, we are still awaiting detail of the operating rules for agrivoltaic systems to be eligible for public incentives and PNRR cash. Developers need to know what design, construction, and monitoring requirements will apply and how the PNRR eligibility of such sites will be verified.

Regarding agrisolar, on farm buildings, a tender for such arrays was issued on July 21. Online applications must be submitted to the organization set up for the purpose by government renewables body the Gestore dei Servizi Energetici (GSE), with an application window due to have opened on Sep. 12 and set to close today.

The tender included an increase in PNRR financial aid of up to 80% for companies involved in, or set to switch to primary agriculture; the option of multiple farms sharing consumption of the solar power they generate and of combining as single agrivolatic-project applicants; and a raising of the maximum eligible rooftop array generation capacity to 1 MWp.

The procurement document also doubled the previous maximum PNRR-eligible expenditure, up to €100,000 for accumulation systems, and to €30,000 for recharging devices, with a PNRR total per single project ceiling of €2.33 million.

About the author: Andrea Tedesco is country manager for Italy at INTEC Energy Solutions. He holds an MSc in electronics engineering and has solar industry experience as a senior project, technical, and area manager; sales and marketing director; and business unit manager. His expertise includes new-business and product development, project management, and building alliances and partnerships.

The Irish government has allotted €380 million ($403 million) – what it is referring to as the “biggest ever budget” – for the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland’s residential and community upgrade schemes, which includes the solar PV grant scheme for homeowners.

The government made the announcement in its 2024 Budget, handed down on Tuesday, under the banner of “energy transformation.” The government said the allocation “will continue to build momentum in delivering on our national retrofit targets” and is a €24 million spend increase on last year.

Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan TD, said in the first half of 2023 solar panel installation increased 231% from last year. This was followed by the government’s move to slash VAT. It is expected that 21,000 households will receive solar support by the end of the year, the announcement states.

But Conall Bolger, CEO of the Irish Solar Energy Association (ISEA), told pv magazine today that the budget was “perhaps not quite so generous as it first appears.” While he welcomed certain government measures, such as the new low-interest loan scheme for rooftop solar, and doubling the tax disregard when a household sells excess solar electricity back to the grid, some instruments lacked urgency and “fail to deliver meaningful actions.”

There was 616 MW of rooftop and ground-mounted solar PV connected to the Irish grid at the end of 2022, according to data provided by the Irish Distribution System Operator, ESB Networks, Bolger said. He said the department is forecasting 1,060 MW connected at the end of 2023.

In a wider commentary on the budget, Bolger said he was critical of the government’s failure to scrap tax barriers preventing farmers from leasing land for solar developments. “Central to Ireland’s decarbonisation plan is the government’s own stated ambition to develop 8 GW of solar energy by 2030,” he explained.

“This will require approximately 25,000 acres of solar farms within this decade and making this a reality will require the cooperation of farmers across the country. All farming families are conscious of tax exemptions to allow land to be passed on to the next generation without punitive tax bills. Inexplicably, this does not apply in instances where more than 50% of land is utilised by solar panels.”

He also expected the government to remove the “arbitrary rule” that “punishes” farmers who engage in renewable energy. Bolger said there is growing demand from home and business owners to implement rooftop solar PV panels, and meeting this demand would require more trained tradespeople to install the technology.

From pv magazine 09/23

Polish PV project permitting, decided on the basis of conditions of development (decyzja o warunkach zabudowy), has long been relatively simple for developers to attain. However, a proposed new system would require developers to pass a local spatial development plan, which could be a considerably longer process.

According to the new law, change-of-land-use permission for solar plants would be offered only on the basis of local spatial development plans, for all arrays located on the most fertile, class I to class III agricultural land, or on forest land. The regime would also apply to arrays larger than 150 kW on less fertile, class IV agricultural land, and for projects larger than 1 MW on any other type of land. The size stipulation would be flexible for sites intended for business power production.

The recent draft legislation would offer developers the chance to secure permission before local plans are finalized, before Jan. 1, 2026. While previous planning decisions would remain valid indefinitely, those issued after the new law came into force would only be valid for five years.

Grid measures

On July 31, the lower house of the Polish parliament and the Senate prepared an amendment to the Energy Act which would oblige large electricity retailers to offer dynamic pricing, in line with EU regulation. The statute is now awaiting presidential sign-off.

With solar projects held up by grid capacity shortages, the legislation would also relax the rules governing generators installing direct transmission to electricity consumers, without using the grid. The Energy Act already allows direct lines, the key proposed change is a waiving of the obligation to obtain a permit from the President of the Energy Regulatory Office to build such a line. That permit requirement effectively blocks such projects because it may be issued only if the energy customer has no option of receiving electricity from the public grid.

The legislation would liberalize the construction of such direct lines and set out specific requirements. First, electricity could be supplied only from a separate production unit, that is, from a unit that has a total output going to one consumer. It would, therefore, be impossible to connect 25% of a PV plant’s nominal power output to the grid and supply the remaining power directly to a dedicated consumer. Secondly, all of the electricity supplied would have to be consumed by a dedicated consumer, that is, a user that is not connected to the power grid or is connected in a way that prevents the feeding of electricity produced at the third-party production site, to the grid. The amended statute would, however, allow the feed of excess electricity not consumed by the dedicated consumer into the grid. Any such arrangement would have to be agreed with the grid operator.

The new law would impose charges on grid-connected energy consumers for using electricity supplied via a direct line from a generator, with the fee payable to the local grid operator. The fee would not apply to customers who are not connected to the public grid and who create a type of “power island” together with the generator.

With such off-grid direct lines expected to be rare, it is anticipated most energy consumers that establish a line to a dedicated generator would have to pay the, so-called “solidarity fee,” which the statute would require to be calculated on the basis of the quantity of power supplied via the direct line. The charge would be meant to cover the maintenance costs of grid system-quality standards and ensuring the reliability of ongoing power supply. In other words, the consumer’s share of the fixed costs of transmission and distribution of grid electricity. The solidarity fee would be calculated by local grid operators.

Cable pooling

Another approach to enable the connection of new clean energy plants to the grid without waiting for infrastructure upgrades is also worth mentioning. This is cable pooling: adding new renewables sites to the grid via existing connections.

The Senate has proposed such an option by adding a comprehensive legislative amendment to this effect, to the bill amending the Renewable Energy Sources Act and Certain Other Acts. Cable pooling is about sharing a connection between more than one generation site. Such pooling makes sense for plants with different production profiles, especially PV projects sharing connections with wind farms, as they often produce electricity at different times of the day and neither uses their full connection capacity most of the time. Cable pooling will rely on physical security measures to prevent overuse of any connection capacity assigned. The cable pooling amendment put forward by the Senate is yet to be approved by parliament.

Last but not least, the trade in PV projects in Poland shows no sign of slowing down. The market is getting more and more professional. Buyers and project developers are increasingly seeking business partners on industry portals and classified advertisement websites.

About the author: Piotr Mrowiec is an associate partner at Rödl & Partner. He is head of the office in Gdansk, Poland and leader of the renewables team. As a specialist in renewable energy regulation, he advises numerous clients and conducts legal due diligence for PV and wind projects. Mrowiec has also been involved in studies for dozens of solar and wind projects.

From pv magazine 09/23

In 2021, India’s annual solar manufacturing capacity stood at 14 GW. While superficially an impressive figure, much of this capacity was sub-scale and technologically obsolete, with Chinese imports meeting more than 80% of Indian demand. Even though module manufacturing capacity has now grown to 26 GW, actual production remains low, at around 8 GW annually.

There are multiple policies that have driven solar manufacturing expansion. In April 2022, the Indian Ministry of Finance levied hefty 40% and 25% border customs duties – plus a 10% surcharge – on imports of all solar modules and cells, respectively. As a result, module imports fell sharply from a monthly average of slightly more than 1.6 GW, in 2021-22, to just 175 MW in the last fiscal year.

An additional policy, the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM) has also had an effect. Under the ALMM, all grid connected projects, including rooftop solar systems, are required to use government-certified cells and modules, made by approved manufacturers. While the scheme does not formally discriminate between suppliers on the basis of nationality, approvals have so far only been granted to Indian companies.

The scheme was meant to be applicable from March 2021 but the implementation timeline was shifted to April 2024, due to lack of sufficient domestic capacity. By July of this year, 19.2 GW of module manufacturing capacity had been approved across 78 manufacturers.

The government has allocated capital subsidies of $2.2 billion to 12 companies setting up a total manufacturing capacity of 48.3 GW under its Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. Subsidy amounts will be differentiated based on parameters such as the extent of upstream integration, local value addition, capacity, and solar module efficiency. It is estimated PLI funding will amount to around 25% of investment capital costs. Notable companies to win subsidies include Reliance, Shirdi Sai, Adani, First Solar, ReNew, Tata Power, Avaada, JSW, AMP, Waaree, and Vikram Solar.

Tax and zoning

The Ministry of Finance has also reduced the corporate tax rate from 25.2% to 17.2% for manufacturing companies incorporated after September 2019, provided they go into operation before April 2024.

The government is setting up three dedicated renewables equipment manufacturing zones with capital assistance of INR 10 billion ($121 million). These zones are being selected through a competitive bidding process based on the lowest power and land costs for the manufacturing businesses. The government of the state of Madhya Pradesh has been awarded the first tranche, with a capital assistance of INR 4 billion.

Local and regional funds are also available to manufacturers. Most states offer multiple benefits including capital and operating-cost subsidies, lower general sales tax rates, cheap land, and so on. The central government is also encouraging public and private lenders to support manufacturing projects.

Policy thrust

The substantial policy thrust has resulted in a flurry of market activity. Bridge to India estimates total domestic polysilicon, cell, and module production capacities will reach 30 GW, 43 GW, and 110 GW, respectively, by 2026. That said, module supply is expected to remain constrained in the short-term until a significant chunk of new capacity comes online, by the end of 2024. Most manufacturers prefer to sell in the overseas market, particularly in the United States, where they can command up to 40% higher prices.

India is on the way to becoming the world’s second largest manufacturer of solar modules but there are still many issues and challenges to consider. There is lingering policy uncertainty as project developers are seeking another extension of ALMM and further import duty petitions are being considered by both upstream and downstream solar manufacturers. There is also the risk of World Trade Organization (WTO) disputes causing uncertainty. China has already flagged the ALMM mandate as a specific trade concern four times at the WTO.

The goal of becoming self-sufficient, as far as solar energy products are concerned, still appears elusive as upstream Indian polysilicon and wafer production capacity is expected to be insufficient to meet demand. Indian manufacturers are critically dependent on China for technology expertise, manufacturing machinery, component supplies, and even engineering skills. In the longer term, there are also concerns that the generous US Inflation Reduction Act may mean Indian modules are not cost competitive in export markets. Indian modules are expected to remain at least 25% to 30% more expensive than their Chinese counterparts.

About the author: Vinay Rustagi is the managing director of Bridge to India, a renewables-focused research company and consultancy. He advises project developers, investors, equipment suppliers, technology companies, and policymakers on a wide range of issues related to business strategy, market environment, policy frameworks, and finance.

From pv magazine 09/23

This year, solar manufacturers have increased vertical integration and production capacity, and the global industry has attracted new entrants, buoyed by the market outlook and advancing technology. Infolink data shows annual module production capacity grew at an average of 30% to 40% from 2018 to 2022. That rate is expected to double this year, to an unprecedented 80%.

Module oversupply

Technology and competition are driving expansion, prompting legacy manufacturers to modify production lines. For instance, passivated emitter rear contact (PERC) lines must have nine-busbar (BB) to 11 BB stringer machines upgraded to 16 BB devices, and have laminating temperatures controlled, to produce tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) modules. For heterojunction (HJT) production, busbarless cell interconnection requires dispenser equipment.

InfoLink expects that more than a terawatt of annual module production capacity will be reached this year. Inventory has already started stockpiling, driving buyers to wait. Quarterly module prices have fallen below manufacturer quotes and some solar companies have clawed back their overseas stock at the end of June, as underselling continued into early August.

Module-only manufacturers are thought to have experienced negative gross margins thanks to solar cell costs, and risk management strategy will be critical to survive in a competitive market.

Solar manufacturers with just a single business model will need a risk strategy as competition increases. SMEs could take advantage of flat organizational structures to show flexibility in equipment use and at a managerial decision-making level.

Standing out

Manufacturers can utilize the production of medium and low-efficiency products to control costs while also accepting special-specification or, unbranded, original equipment manufacturer (OEM) orders to manage monthly output. This allows for efficient capacity utilization and the maintenance of a stable utilization rate, which can be lowered to regulate inventory level. Based on historical expense data, the average gross margin level for OEM and dual-channel distribution may be lower than for direct sales. During periods of high market volatility, however, maintaining conservative gross margins can provide flexibility in continuing minimum operational conditions.

As the industry moves toward competitive convergence on identical or similar module technology, product differentiation strategies will help SMEs by increasing module diversity and market opportunities to create demand. Using differentiated products, such as flexible thin-film and small-format specialty modules – to expand product ranges and cater to different applications based on customer need – can foster the development of potential markets.

In addition, diversification of suppliers and customers can reduce reliance on certain clients, suppliers, and markets. As regional risks have been steadily increasing in recent years, particularly within the volatile environment of the solar industry, SMEs could become vulnerable to market fluctuation. Expansion overseas and developing diversified products will help spread risk and build solid customer relationships to ensure long-term business cooperation.

Vertical expansion

Manufacturers can also adopt supply chain integration strategies to manage the manufacturing capability of their upstream and downstream segments. Such vertical integration enhances cost management capability and retains transaction space by having in-house production capacity of other segments, thereby maintaining flexibility and mitigating risk during periods of greater volatility. Taking the example of cell manufacturers expanding into module production, if the cell inventory cycle extends, in-house module capacity can consume a portion of the cell output, ensuring better risk control.

The significance of vertical integration is growing for manufacturers. This involves expanding into project development, system design, integrated products, and after-sales operation and maintenance services. Such an approach can effectively address product usage and consumption issues. Moreover, manufacturers can gain a better grasp of real-time market information downstream through collaboration with clients.

The S word

With sustainability requirements tightening – in the form of environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) reporting guidelines set to become obligatory in the European Union and with new standards planned in the United States and internationally – PV manufacturers powered by non-renewable energy, for example, will face greater risk. At the same time, this will provide all players with more opportunities for differentiation. Manufacturers can seize this chance.

Long-term oversupply has become a key issue in the PV industry. Given the resource and financial constraints faced by SMEs, companies should deploy a combination of strategies to establish presence in a market that is marked by a convergence of competition. This includes exploring potential markets via differentiated products and adopting strategies such as OEM and dual-channel distribution to mitigate operational risk. With sustainability becoming a corporate imperative, manufacturers should also be prepared for future policy dynamics in regional markets, thereby seizing businesses opportunities. Adapting risk strategies will be a crucial factor for the survival of manufacturers with a single business model.

About the author: Amy Fang is an InfoLink analyst who focuses on the solar cell and module segment of the PV supply chain, working across price trend forecasting and production data.

Researchers from the University of Lausanne and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology tracked the solar uptake of 600 homeowners in Schaffhausen, a city in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, for four months in 2022. They found that the best way for governments to nudge homeowners into installing rooftop PV solar systems was greatly increased when the individual was guided by self-interest.

“There were two key takeaways,” one of the study’s co-authors, Maurus Pfalzgraf, told pv magazine, “and one was that nudging is effective.” The other major finding was that the success of nudging – meaning to gently propose an idea without a mandate or incentive – was determined by whether the homeowner was informed by how much money they could save, “or would have saved if they already installed PV,” Pfalzgraf said.

Mainly tasked with testing the efficacy of nudging, the researchers also wanted to find what personalized behavioral interventions worked better as a nudge. The first intervention was underpinned by prosocial motives – meaning the intention to benefit another person, group or society – and the latter intervention was rooted in self-interest. Schaffhausen was selected as the pilot city as its residential electricity price at the time of research was “very close” to the European average, the paper reported.

In collaboration with the local government, the researchers sent 600 homeowners two personalized letters. One of the letters addressed the prosocial benefits of rooftop solar PV and included phrases such as, “You could become less dependent on energy sources such as oil or gas from abroad and at the same time make a valuable contribution to climate protection.” The second letter was written in the vein of self-interest and included lines such as, “You are missing out on 7,900 kWh of solar electricity per year, worth around CHF 790 ($865).”

Both types of letters included invitations to receive PV consulting sessions offered by a neutral public organization. The consultation was followed by the option to request an offer for the installation. After the consultation, the homeowner was asked to state the likelihood for going through with the installation. At every step of the process, the researchers were keeping track of follow-through.

“With a 15-percentage point change, this self-interested type of nudge increased the pressure to act,” the paper states. “In comparison, a second group which received a personalized letter activating social norms regarding one’s community by demonstrating how many of one’s neighbors have already installed PV produced smaller, yet statistically significant effects with about 6.5 percentage point change.”

Pfalzgraf said the team was still waiting to collect the figures regarding how many individuals went through with the whole PV installation, and he was also personally interested in interrogating whether nudging worked to convince individuals with large property portfolios and renters. Overall, Pfalzgraf said the team was “happy” to see the “clear potential” of nudging proved as an effective government instrument. Nudging is generally perceived as an easier and cheaper mechanism for governments to employ as the prompts do not require policy-change or subsidies for implementation.

The research group presented its findings in the study “Governments can nudge household solar energy adoption: Evidence from a field experiment in Switzerland,” which was recently published in Energy Research & Social Science.

The research was conducted from June—September 2022 and was guided by a desire to “contribute to a better understanding of how public organizations can use behavioral interventions to promote renewables without large subsidies,” the paper claimed. Pfalzgraf said the research was important from a Swiss perspective as it could help the federal government achieve its net zero fossil fuel target by 2050.

Swissolar, the PV association of Switzerland, announced in June the central European country had installed more than 1 GW of PV last year – the third year PV demand increased by 40%. Switzerland recorded 4,134 MW of total solar PV capacity at the end of 2022, according to the most recently collected data by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

From pv magazine USA

The days of the solar industry operating as a “net metering type of industry” are “starting to be numbered,” said Jigar Shah, the director of the US Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, at the recent RE+ 2023 conference in Las Vegas.

“Most solar systems come with batteries, and most are integrating smart panels,” he said. “They’re integrating demand response and load control capabilities into the inverter controls.”

Because a solar-plus-storage system with those features can earn its owner compensation through participation in a virtual power plant (VPP) – an aggregation of similar systems often managed by a third-party aggregator – Shah encouraged the solar industry to see its future in VPPs. The deployment of VPPs to date is shown in the featured image above.

Besides distributed storage, other distributed energy resources that can be aggregated into a VPP include electric vehicle chargers, smart thermostats, and smart electric water heaters.

Shah said that electric utilities are “looking to bury the hatchet and really deploy a lot of these technologies at scale” through VPPs. “Frankly, it is the only way for them to integrate all of the huge load that is coming their way.”

Shah said utilities Duke Energy, serving the Carolinas, and Luma Energy in Puerto Rico have announced large VPP projects, the latter with the residential solar firm Sunnova.

Addressing the solar industry professionals in his audience at RE+, Shah said “you’re the ones who should be integrating all of the technologies that are shown on the floor out there, into a coherent package.”

For its part, the DoE anticipates lending support on the order of $100 million to advance VPPs, Shah said. Sunnova’s inclusion of low- and moderate-income Puerto Ricans in its VPP project is being supported by $3 million in loan support, while other applicants are already preparing $30 million in loan requests.

To continue reading, please visit our pv magazine USA website.

From pv magazine 09/23

The most extreme situation in European electricity markets this year occurred during the first weekend of July. Europe saw, for most of the day, negative wholesale prices across the whole continent, from Finland to Spain.

Paradoxically, consumers in countries such as Ireland and Denmark are currently dealing with record-high retail electricity prices that are more than five times the average cost of wholesale power. The German government is also considering subsidies to shield its heavy industry from international competition and escalating energy prices. All of these circumstances show an energy system in need of serious reform. Across Europe, the electricity price that end consumers pay comprises the cost of generation, grid expense, government levies, charges, and taxes such as VAT. The approach to taxes and levies varies, with nations including Malta, Bulgaria, and Hungary imposing lighter taxes on electricity than, say, Denmark, which penalizes heavy usage.

The treatment of commercial customers and heavy industry also varies by nation with Germany being highly supportive of manufacturers while Ireland, for instance, is not. All retail electricity prices contain two common elements, however: the cost of electricity generation and maintaining grids.

Price structure

Taking Germany as an example, the average retail consumer paid more than €0.46/kWh ($0.50) in the first half of the year. Those rates were nearly 50% more than what the consumer paid in 2021 and were largely a reflection of the Russian gas crisis. Interestingly, wholesale prices have now come back to 2021 levels of around €0.07/kWh to €0.10/kWh, which begs the question: Why is the German consumer still paying €0.24/kWh just for the generation component of their electricity?

The answer to that question is that they are doing so because many German utilities hedged their power purchases at the top of the market last year, when extreme gas prices and problems in French nuclear saw European power prices hit all-time highs. The good news is that the customer will gain the benefit of the current lower wholesale prices, going forward.

The same cannot be said for the grid costs which make up the other major component of electricity bills. Grid expenses across Europe, as a rule, are lower than generation costs, at an average of €0.06/kWh in the EU. In the first half of 2023, German grid costs were €0.095/kWh, putting them at the very upper end of European costs.

Grid expenses have surged by 50% over the last decade. The substantial investments required to connect new renewables plants and transport their energy, largely account for this trend. Complicating matters, system stability costs are rising exponentially, especially when systems are overloaded or grid bottlenecks occur.

Supply dynamics

Europe currently has an installed renewable energy fleet of 690 GW of generation capacity, comprising 255 GW of hydropower, 225 GW of wind, and 209 GW of solar. On a good weather day, that is enough to meet the electricity needs of the whole of the market. The good news is that there are now many days when 50% or more of Europe’s power needs are met by renewables. If you add nuclear to the mix, there are many days when 75% of Europe’s power needs are met by low-CO₂ electricity. This is particularly the case at weekends, when peak European demand is around 320 GW and there is lots of solar electricity in the system.

This large volume of renewable energy means that the weather now determines the power price. When there is an abundance of sun, wind, and rain – as there was during the first weekend of July – power prices tumble. When there is not a lot of sun or wind, power prices increase. All generators have to monitor the weather so that they can optimize their power generation assets.

The best generation facilities are those that can be easily ramped up and down, like the many types of modern natural-gas plants. When required, the ones that are ramped down first are those with fuel costs, such as coal and gas, especially if a generator believes that they will not be able to recover the costs of fueling their power station with the price they receive on the power market.

The most difficult generation assets to manage are the “baseload” power plants, which are designed for continuous operation. Many old nuclear, coal, and gas power stations are baseload sites, along with most run-of-the-river hydro plants. They are very difficult to ramp up or down, let alone switch off, which is why, oftentimes, they accept very low power prices or even negative prices in the market.

Going forward, the economics of these baseload plants are going to be severely tested as the frequency of negative electricity prices and volatility is only going to rise, fueled by the addition of 70 GW of solar and wind power this year alone, with a similar amount expected next year and the year after. This also poses a financial challenge for new clean energy generation, as renewables plants could potentially also earn zero income during sunny or windy days.

Decarbonization pathways

Rapid decarbonization requires deep electrification of the energy system, starting with transport, then heating, and, eventually, cooling. Major organizations such as the International Energy Agency believe that this is the best route to net zero – not only in terms of economics, but also in order to achieve the goal at a sufficiently fast pace.

The way forward is to add sufficient renewables and nuclear generation to the system to meet growing demand for electricity and to ensure that the electricity mix is clean. This approach has the added benefit of lowering overall energy demand, as the whole process of creating, transporting, and using electricity is much more efficient than burning fossil fuels.

Despite deep electrification being generally recognized as the best way to decarbonize, most countries in Europe still have customer incentive structures in place which are skewed towards the fossil fuel alternatives. In response, governments are finally putting in place subsidies to incentivize customers to buy electric vehicles and install heat pumps.

However, such policies fail to deal with the major distortion present in the market, represented by the fact that it is still cheaper, throughout most of Europe, to fuel a car with diesel than with electricity, or to heat a house with natural gas, as opposed to a heat pump. The main reason for this is tax policies which favor fossil fuels over electricity.

Addressing these challenges requires a multi-faceted approach and will be critical if we are going to decarbonize.

Starter policies

There are six initial policy steps European governments could action:

• Reduce electricity taxation: It is essential to make electrifying transport and heating economically viable for consumers by reducing electricity costs. This will likely involve a fundamental review of what comprises an electricity bill, with a close examination on how best to optimize the generation and grid elements. More importantly, governments need to review taxation policies by noting that in many European countries, taxes represent more than 50% of consumer electricity bills. That level of tax should be progressively placed on fossil fuel in the form of higher carbon levies.
• Use every unit: Wastage of electricity must be minimized by optimizing demand to coincide with periods of surplus electricity and low prices, requiring smart meters and conducive regulation, especially around the provision of flexible tariffs which enable the consumer to take advantage of periods of low electricity prices. It is also important to ensure that regulatory frameworks are in place to allow any excess electricity to be converted into other energy forms, such as synthetic fuels, that will further help with decarbonization. This will also kick-start new business models to benefit consumers and speed up the energy transition.
• Phase out baseload generation: It is necessary to accelerate the phasing out of baseload fossil fuel plants, with the most flexible generation sites being moved into reserve. This will lessen the number of periods with low and negative wholesale power prices which will, in turn, incentivize the building of replacement clean generation facilities while allowing other, cleaner baseload electricity plants – such as nuclear and run-of-the-river hydro – to continue thriving.
• Facilitate energy storage: All barriers to energy storage development should be removed and consideration should be made to putting in place incentives for flexible generation – some of which may be fossil powered – for what German-speakers dub “dunkelflaute” days in winter when there is not enough solar or wind production.
• Accelerate network expansion: Revise the incentive structure for grid operators, in order to push quick and cost-effective investment into power networks while at the same time increasing the utilization and efficiency of existing networks with new technologies and service structures. This will, in turn, unleash a whole range of new business models, from smart charging for electric vehicles to domestic virtual power plants.
• Provide European oversight: Establish a European institution which would be responsible for overseeing the whole energy transition and for ensuring the most effective path forward for the decarbonization of the European energy system. A key focus would be on enabling close, cross-border cooperation, which is key to keeping costs low and which is, in turn, critical for continued European business and industry success as well as keeping the cost of living low for all European citizens.

Without such reforms, the road to decarbonization will be exceedingly rocky. If these measures are implemented, however, they could enable quick, effective, and economical decarbonization.

About the author: Gerard Reid is a partner at corporate finance advisory Alexa Capital. He has spent more than 20 years working in investment banking, equity research, fund management, and corporate finance, with a focus on the energy transition and the digital energy revolution. He previously served as the managing director of European cleantech research at investment banking group Jefferies & Co.

The mood of “cautious optimism” that kicked off the week in Lisbon continues. Speakers and exhibitors appear more confident than ever that solar cell and module performance will continue to improve, and that reliability and system lifetimes will increase.

The practical matters of rolling out these technology improvements at scale and integrating them into landscapes and electricity grids around the world are emerging as a new set of key concerns for solar experts in every specialty, and topics related to these take a prominent position at this year’s conference.

Topping the agenda since day one has been the geopolitics of manufacturing. The risk of continuing to rely on a single region for supply is becoming an essential component in energy systems. And there is a clear consensus that the solar industry wants to see action from the European Union and member state governments to support the establishment of a domestic supply chain for solar energy products via incentives.

Grid and landscape

Beyond that headline, several sessions have delved into the grid constraints that threaten to slow down solar installations in some otherwise leading markets – a topic that SolarPower Europe CEO Walburga Hemetsberger called for researchers to address in the opening panel discussion on Monday. Solutions to these constraints are grid upgrades, energy storage and increased interconnection. Here as well, regulation seems to be a major hold up, and consensus is that allowing more private investment in grid infrastructure would be an effective way to speed up the required changes to energy infrastructure.

Integrating solar into landscapes and built environments has also been a key topic, as land constraints begin to be felt. Tuesday afternoon saw a session dedicated to ensuring the reliability of PV systems in tough climates such as deserts and water surfaces, and introduced the possibility of accelerated testing specifically designed to simulate these environments – a presentation by Bengt Jäckel of the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Photovoltaics introduced the idea of “mission profiles” to test PV equipment under the combined stresses of different environmental conditions. And the extra capacity that could be opened up by improvements in building-integrated PV products, agrivoltaics and also by simple efficiency improvements getting more energy out of the same amount of space.

Sustainability

Impressive progress in PV module recycling is also on show at this year’s conference, with high technology approaches to shred modules using light pulses or high pressure water jets on show, and new processes focused on extracting the most valuable materials for reuse. And it’s clear from those presenting and in the audience during this session that an industry is forming around these processes, with both new startup companies and those already established in glass recycling all looking at setting up factories able to handle several thousand tons of module waste per year.

Wednesday morning’s session covering the latest in silicon PV technologies also illustrated the industry’s growing focus on sustainability – with a presentation from Longi Solar’s Chunxui Li detailing potential problems with the supply of indium for heterojunction modules, and a neat way to get around this, achieving better than 26% cell efficiency.

New technologies

This session later moved on to the high efficiency cell technologies now making their way from laboratories toward manufacturing.

Offering a comprehensive update on tandem cell technologies, Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin’s Rutger Schlatmann stated that the progress made and the number of companies pursuing the technology mean that the solar industry is now committed to bringing perovskite technology to the market. This was underlined in the following presentation by Oxford PV’s Laura Miranda and has been reflected in many other presentations on the topic of perovskites – which have focused on the development of testing and characterization techniques, as well as large-scale manufacturing processes, with few presentations demonstrating new lab-made cells.

Finally, on the technology front, First Solar’s Matthew Merfert revealed some impressive results and an ambitious roadmap for the US-based thin-film giant. The company hopes to increase its efficiency to 25% over the next few years, and has also successfully demonstrated an approach to replace its metal back contacting structure with a transparent conductive oxide, potentially opening doors to bifacial cadmium-telluride modules, and the uses of this technology in a tandem or multijunction cell stack.

Researchers at Sweden's Uppsala University have applied deep machine learning to automatically identify photovoltaic and solar-thermal systems in aerial imagery and said their work yielded mixed results.

They looked specifically into ariel imagery from Sweden by using a deep learning framework called DeepSolar CNN, which was developed by Stanford scientists. The framework uses a convolutional neural network (CNN), which enables extracting and learning features from visual data.

According to the research group, the proposed framework achieved an accuracy of 63.9% when used over a Swedish data set. That is lower than previous research conducted with the same framework in other countries. For example, a US group of researchers attained an accuracy of 91%, and a study done in Germany achieved 87.3%.

However, the Swedish-trained CNN has achieved more competitive results regarding the recall rate. While the precision rate refers to the method's ability not to make mistakes, the recall rate refers to its ability not to let positive information slip through. In that recall metric, the Swedish DeepSolar has achieved 81.8%, compared to 98.1% in the US and 87.5% in Germany.

“Regarding the lower precision achieved in this study compared to the previous publications, one explanation is that our scans of complete municipalities in the sparsely populated Sweden contain a much larger share of negative images than the mentioned studies,” the scientists explained. “As the main goal is to evaluate how useful detection of decentralized solar energy systems (SESs) by aerial images and a CNN classification algorithm are for creating as comprehensive a database as possible, a high recall is more important than a high precision.”

The scientists said the algorithm was first trained with a data set from North-Rhine Westphalia state in Germany and was then fine-tuned to Sweden with pictures from eight municipalities. It was then used to scan the whole spatial area of three Swedish municipalities – Uppvidinge, Falun, and Knivsta. These data were compared with other data collected with onsite inspections.

This iterative process involved multiple scans, with the CNN algorithm being retrained after each municipality scan, resulting in progressively enhanced accuracy. In the initial scan, the algorithm detected 89% of the detectable PV systems (excluding BIPV and vertical installations) and 59% of the ST systems,” the scientists emphasized. “Remarkably, by the fourth and final scan, these detection rates improved to 95% for PV systems and 80% for ST systems.”

They also specified that most undetected PV systems were frameless modules, typically installed on darker-colored roofs. In addition, shading from trees or structures, image reflections, and systems with high tilt angles impeded the classification algorithm's detection efficacy.

“Accuracy underscores the model's ability as both an inventory tool and a mechanism for constructing comprehensive databases of existing SESs,” the Swedish team concluded. “Connecting such a database, where the exact locations of the SESs are known, to existing building and property inventories, facilitates the generation of remarkably detailed SES market segment statistics.”

Its findings can be found in the paper “Mapping of decentralized photovoltaic and solar thermal systems by remote sensing aerial imagery and deep machine learning for statistic generation,” published in Energy and AI.

With 80% of the world’s population without access to electricity resides in Sub-Saharan Africa — it is clear that the current fossil fuel based energy system fails to meet Africa’s power needs. Something needs to be done quickly.

Renewables offer a compelling solution. Not only are they the most rapidly deployable and versatile technology available. They are also the most affordable.

A recent analysis by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) shows that the adoption of renewable power in Africa since the year 2000 has led to USD 19 billion in fossil fuel cost savings within the electricity sector.

Given that Africa’s renewable energy potential far outstrips its projected demand for electricity in 2040, the continent has more than enough renewable resources to promote inclusive growth and sustainable development as envisioned by the African Union in its Agenda 2063.

Africa’s renewable energy resource potential, however, is unevenly distributed across the continent. There is a profound need for appropriate infrastructure to be put in place to utilize and distribute this potential among the different regions to enable efficient, sustainable, and affordable access to energy across Africa.

To realize Africa’s vast potential, we must ensure there is adequate investment and infrastructure development to support renewable energy. In the coming years, this means urgently overcoming the structural barriers across three priorities: infrastructure, policy, and institutional capabilities.

Continued investments in cross-border transmission infrastructure and a deepening of electricity trade can bring more flexibility to achieve a smart diversified generation structure and accommodate the high share of variable renewables, thus enhancing Africa’s grid reliability and resilience.

To achieve this transformation, in 2021 the African Union launched the African Single Electricity Market (AfSEM) aimed at creating one of the largest electricity markets in the world by 2040.

The Continental Power System Masterplan (CMP), under which IRENA collaborates with AUDA-NEPAD, serves as a blueprint and supports the establishment of a long-term continent-wide planning process for power generation and transmission involving all five African power pools.

Implementing this ambitious plan will be a herculean task, requiring an extraordinary level of financial resources—a burden that African nations cannot shoulder alone.  As Kenya’s President William Ruto made clear at the recent launch of the Accelerated Partnership for Renewables in Africa (APRA), which IRENA facilitates, the question is not whether Africa has the ambition, but how to translate ambition into reality.

The energy transition requires large public investment to trigger systemic change and build the physical infrastructure needed to develop a new energy system powered by renewables. This is where multilateral financial institutions come into play.

For too long, institutions have addressed symptoms rather than root causes. While funding individual projects—be they utility-scale or off-grid—is crucial, without the necessary structural changes, this approach is not comprehensive. It cannot hope to attract sufficient capital to fundamentally transform the continent’s energy reality to deliver its socioeconomic development goals. A change in approach is needed.

It is time to reimagine how multilateral cooperation works and to strengthen collaboration between the Global North and the Global South. Reform is needed to the way lending is made. Priority must be given to building supportive physical infrastructure, enhancing local capacities, and creating local supply chains leveraging Africa's abundant critical materials. All of this must be done in a way that adds economic value for African countries.

Only 2% of global investments in renewable energy in the last two decades were made in Africa. The recent initiative announced by the COP28 Presidency during Africa Climate Week marks a significant milestone for the continent. Not only is the USD 4.5 billion commitment to develop clean power in Africa a significant sum, it is also targeted to address key energy transition barriers, including the continent’s infrastructure needs.

Later this year, at COP28, the first Global Stocktake since the Paris Agreement will be held in the United Arab Emirates. This event will measure the gap that remains between climate pledges and action. The moment, however, will also present us with a chance to chart a new course.

As we approach this pivotal moment in history, it is imperative that we construct an action-oriented narrative that tackles the key barriers. Doing so will enable us to take meaningful strides towards keeping the 1.5-degree Celsius temperature rise within reach.

Authors: Francesco La Camera, IRENA Director-General & Nardos Bekele-Thomas, AUDA-NEPAD CEO

This opinion piece first appeared in The Standard on 11^th September 2023

Now in its 40^th year, EUPVSEC kicked off in Lisbon this morning with an opening session that shows a European solar industry that appears confident of a comeback, despite recent challenges.

The event this year is already far larger than any going back as far as 2018, and has a much bigger industrial presence than previous years, which have been dominated by Europe’s PV research institutes and universities, with only a few equipment suppliers making the journey. The return of industry players was underlined from the start, with the awarding of the Becquerel Prize to longtime PV industry leader and CEO of Meyer Burger, Gunter Erfurt.

Accepting the prize earlier today, Erfurt spoke of the need for an industry-wide change in attitude on several fronts including policies to compete with lower-priced imports making their way into Europe, and the handling of intellectual property. On the imports side, he called for incentives on the buyer side for use of European made products, and stressed that globally,  the solar industry must change its attitude to intellectual property to one that values innovation and the investment that comes with it, and accepts that making or buying products that copy another’s work are not an acceptable strategy.

Nevertheless, he stated confidently that Europe can produce solar modules for the rooftop and utility-scale markets, and achieve a levelized cost of energy very close to products imported from any region.

Policy challenges

Discussions in the opening session carried on with this air of optimism, while also recognizing that solar faces big challenges both in Europe and globally. Speaking in a panel discussion, SolarPower Europe CEO Walburga Hemetsberger stated that European PV is on a good path, with continent-wide PV installations expected to reach eight terawatts by 2050. “We see growth, but we cannot be complacement” she told the audience in Lisbon.

Later, the difficult situation faced by European PV manufacturers was laid out in a presentation by the European Solar Manufacturing Council’s Johan Lindahl. He warned that average capacity utilization for factories in Europe has fallen to 35%, with some manufacturers sitting on inventories now too expensive to be sold – and the ESMC is calling for support from the EU, possibly in the form of a program to buy out these inventories and donate the modules to reconstruction efforts in Ukraine. “To be an EU manufacturer equals a major structural disadvantage,” Lindahl told the crowd in the first session after lunch today.

And the wave of new manufacturing facilities currently under construction in the United States is also being discussed as further impetus for the EU to take action in supporting a European industry: “The Inflation Reduction Act is wake up call for Europe,” said Hemetsberger. “All regions want the PV technology of the future, and Europe must get into that race.”

Efficiency and integration

Much of the talk this morning has focused on the need for a policy overhaul to support solar at EU and state level. But EUPVSEC is traditionally a place where the latest PV technologies making their way out of Europe’s top R&D labs is showcased. And this year should be no different.

Talk of new applications and increased learnings on floating PV and agrivoltaics are emerging already as key themes: Also joining this morning’s panel discussion, Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore’s Thomas Reindl stated that both floating PV (including offshore) and agrivoltaics will be key enablers in keeping solar installations growing, as well as space for building-integrated PV, which has so far seemed more difficult to manufacture, but no less important.

The opening panel discussion also noted that European research institute’s have led the solar industry in achieving close to a 0.5% per year increase in module efficiency for more than 20 years, and maintaining, even improving on this will be a key theme for week-long conference. “Bigger leaps in technology are ahead of us,” said Reindl. “Every additional kilowatt-hour we can generate from the same space is precious.”

Days after a number of European solar associations urged the European Commission to protect the bloc's PV industry from “unfair” Chinese competition, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, provided a series of statements that appear to indicate that the union is now ready to take a completely new stand toward China when it comes to the energy sector.

“We have not forgotten how China's unfair trade practices affected our solar industry,” she said. “Many young businesses were pushed out by heavily subsidized Chinese competitors. Pioneering companies had to file for bankruptcy. Promising talents went searching for fortune abroad. This is why fairness in the global economy is so important – because it affects lives and livelihoods.”

Von der Leyen did not say which specific measures might be adopted to avoid market distortions in the PV sector. However, she said that the European Union will not accept that prices will be kept “artificially” low by state subsidies.

“And as we do not accept this from the inside, we do not accept this from the outside,” she said. “So I can announce today that the Commission is launching an anti-subsidy investigation into electric vehicles coming from China.”

SolarPower Europe CEO Walburga Hemetsberger praised the commissioner's “commitment to critical industry made in Europe.” However, Hemetsberger noted that “this promise must translate into action. Solar project developers face inflation-driven headwinds. Europe’s solar manufacturers are at risk of bankruptcy.”

Most solar module producers and inverter manufacturers have taken a significant beating on stock exchanges over the last few months, well before module capacity expansion announcements. Jenny Chase, solar analyst at BloombergNEF, said that there is an oversupply across the entire value chain.

“Module and polysilicon prices crashed,” Chase told pv magazine. “There is a lot of inventory of modules in different markets. That means that, although installations are still booming and there is no sign of slowing down, the prospects for individual companies are not generally good, as they are selling more at a lower profit.”

Polysilicon prices spiked to more than $30/kg throughout most of 2022. Since the start of this year, they have fallen from $30.50 to just around $9 today.

Chase said that supply has finally caught up with demand. She said polysilicon prices have had a significant impact on polysilicon makers.

Chase said that module prices were expected to decrease, but not to this extent. Module prices dropped from $0.22 to $0.24 at the beginning of the year to $0.15 today.

Rebecca McManus, renewables lead at Aurora Energy Research, agrees on the significant role played by the decline in polysilicon prices. She noted ongoing manufacturing capacity expansion in China, and plans to expand manufacturing capacity in Europe and North America.

“The rapid expansion of production capacity by Chinese manufacturers has outpaced the growth in demand,” McManus told pv magazine. “This is particularly relevant as prices there are normally two-thirds of the production prices in Europe.”

Similar European announcements are broadening the gap between supply and demand.

“There has been a big push for a more European-led manufacturing of the solar modules. Instead of importing from China, European countries want to produce 30 GW by 2025,” said McManus, noting that EU subsidy reforms are a crucial pillar of this EU strategy.

However, there is potentially another element to the EU plans.

“The new European policies could penalize developers not sourcing from Europe, but from China,” said McManus. “There is a geopolitical risk connected to that.”

The United States is a somewhat similar case, although with some differences. The US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provides opex support for local manufacturing capacity, while EU support is mostly capex-based.

“The IRA is incentivizing capacity manufacturing locally in the US, setting up funding for that,” said McManus. “The US has a large budget for encouraging local manufacturing.”

A second geopolitical risk is related to the supply chains, with China controlling most polysilicon production. Possible tensions could take a toll on European module manufacturers that rely on polysilicon imports from China.

On the other hand, geopolitical risks don’t simply have a bearish effect on stock prices. In some cases, they are pushing up the stock prices of American companies. While several US-based companies have seen the value of their stocks increase by up to 35%, Chinese players have seen decreases of up to 40% to 45%.

“First Solar is an index of US-China trade tensions at the moment. First Solar is expanding because the US has a trade war going on with China and it is trying to restore manufacturing,” said Chase. “Every time there is an intensification of the trade war First Solar is up.”

Other US solar companies are suffering, though – especially in the inverter and microinverter business.

“Some of that could be just that there are other microinverters coming into the market,” explained Chase. “When stock prices change, it does not necessarily mean that there is something bad that has happened to the company, but that the company is not doing as well as the investors expect they would.”

Nonetheless, European manufacturers are considering scaling up operations in the United States.

“Meyer Burger is reallocating the equipment it ordered for Europe to the Colorado factory. Basically, it has bet on the American market,” said Chase, adding that the company reported disappointing results due to the crash of Chinese module prices.

The idea is that Europe should pour more money into domestic manufacturing, especially if it anticipates an escalation of geopolitical tensions.

“US wants to keep the Chinese modules out. Europe has the more realistic goal of having some supply chain that is not Chinese, and ideally some in Europe, in case geopolitical tensions ramp up, so we don’t have a situation where the West is digging up things to burn, while China is running on solar and wind,” said Chase.

She said she feels more certain that European manufacturers will be getting major capex grants than she was six months ago. Still, doubts remain. “How much is that going to help if your opex is higher than the selling price of modules?”

McManus noted that technological developments can have a negative effect on stocks.

“As the technology is maturing, the actual installation costs increase. But there is another element: the size of the installation is changing,” said McManus. “The lifetime of the inverters will have an effect too. Previously, the usual lifetime for inverters was 12 to 15 years, now 25 to 30 years. There is also a similarity for modules. They will last longer and will be more efficient.”

But not everybody agrees.

“I don’t think that most companies tracking stock market investments care much about higher efficiency,” said Chase. “Although they want to invest in companies that have good manufacturing, which generally means being able to increase efficiency without increasing costs.”

Israel will connect more than 2 GW of additional renewable energy capacity to the national grid, the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure said in a recent statement.

The government said that grid congestion was the main reason for halting the connection of new renewable plants, but a recalculation of some sites has enabled additional capacity allocations.

The recalculation was done by the ministry itself, along with the Israeli Electricity Authority, Israel Electric Corp., and national grid manager Noga. New plants will be able to connect to the grid in the “coming weeks,” especially in the southern and northern parts of Israel, according to the statement.

A research group in Australia has defined a series of recommendations for the design of a product stewardship scheme for solar photovoltaic panels and its financial support. Product stewardship consists of a series of actions aimed at preventing waste during the design and manufacturing of a process in an effort to minimize the health, environmental, and social impacts of a product.

“Our work presents a comprehensive product stewardship scheme for solar PV panels, which is, as far as I know, the first one published,” the research's lead author, Peter Majewski, told pv magazine. “It covers new and legacy panels and provides a solution for covering costs.”

In the study “Product stewardship scheme for solar photovoltaic panels,” published in Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry, Majewski and his colleagues explained that a well-designed stewardship scheme should define unequivocally which are the responsibilities of the industry and which are those of consumers in regard to the end-of-life management of a given product.

They also said that, as a rule of thumb, landfill bans, tracking of the panels' serial numbers, and a clear definition of ownership should always be included in the legislation for end-of-life solar products. Furthermore, they said that a Product Stewardship Organisation (PSO) should report to the government on the results and effectiveness of the scheme.

“Once the panels are installed on a rooftop of private dwellings, their operator is obviously the owner of the dwelling,” they explained. “However, once the panels are dismantled and on their way to a recycler, ownership and responsibilities for the proper handling of the panels needs to be clarified. In case of commercially used solar PV panels of solar farms, it can be expected that business agreements between panel manufacturers and solar farm operators clarify the ownership and end-of-life arrangement for the panels before solar farm gets planning approval.”

The scientists created a workflow diagram showing the flow of panels from retail to the customer and to the recycler. The upper part shows how panels may be recycled or re-used as second-hand products, while the lower part shows the B2B arrangement between manufacturers and PV system owners.

The Australian group also explained that all new legislation for end-of-life panels should also apply to modules that are already in operation, considering both their recycling and re-use, and should also avoid calculating recovery rates in terms of weight, as this system may encourage the recycling of “heavy” components only.

As for the re-use of the panels, the academics warned that these should be linked to an electric compliance certificate provided by a certified electrician, which would ensure their safe operation. “Consumers of second-hand solar PV panels need to be certain that the second-hand panels are still working at a defined capacity,” they stated. “Therefore, a certificate would be necessary that provides information about the capacity and age of the second-hand panel.”

The Australian team also sought to define the level of the levy needed to put the scheme in place and said it should be continuously adjustable to ensure high collection and recycling rates. “A fully funded not for profit PSO, which is overseeing and managing the product stewardship scheme, usually achieves high collection rates,” they emphasized. “It can, therefore, be recommended, that the levy is set at a level which not only allows to support collection and recycling of the panels, but also provides funds to support the operations of an effective PSO.”

As a final warning, the researchers said that any legislation for PV module recycling and re-use should be in place before significant amounts of solar waste are generated.

The research group comprises scientists from the University of South Australia, the University of New South Wales (UNSW), US-based PV module recycling company Solarcycle Inc., USA, and Australian association Circular PV Alliance (CPVA).

In the pursuit of a cleaner and more sustainable future, the adoption of EVs has emerged as a significant milestone. Europe is witnessing a surge in EV adoption, driven by the promise of reduced emissions and a greener transportation ecosystem. However a key hurdle remains: the establishment of widespread and accessible EV charging infrastructure. A large share of Europeans live in multi-apartment complexes where the installation of charging facilities is far from straightforward.

While EV charging set-ups are relatively uncomplicated for residents of detached houses, people in multi-unit complexes face a more intricate scenario. Multi-home buildings often have car parks that can accommodate many vehicles and even if there are only a few EVs right now, it is important to get a scalable infrastructure in place from the start so that more drivers can be added over time. The need for system charging – where chargers work together to optimize energy distribution – combined with the management oversight provided by a charge-point management system (CPMS), adds further complexity to the equation.

At Elaway, we recognize a substantial barrier to progress regarding financing of the fundamental charging infrastructure needed for system charging in housing communities. This obstacle poses a chicken-and-egg dilemma. Without adequate infrastructure, EV adoption rates may stagnate as residents lack the convenience of home charging – one of the primary advantages of EV ownership. With only a small percentage of today’s EV owners living in housing communities, however, willingness to contribute to finance charging infrastructure remains limited. It can be a self-perpetuating cycle. Most residents who drive fossil-fuelled cars are unwilling to pay for EV infrastructure. With almost half of Europe's population living in multi-apartment complexes – according to EU statistical body Eurostat – appropriate charging infrastructure is a major challenge that needs to be addressed to ensure the uptake of EVs by people in such buildings.

A successful model can be observed in Norway, a leader in the EV market. The Norwegian EV Association estimates electric vehicles have a market share of more than 80% of new cars sold and EVs now make up more than 20% of the total car fleet. The success is, in part, because Norway has pioneered a solution to the financing challenge. The Nordic state has mandatory regulations for housing communities to provide EV charging, coupled with a stipulation that entire communities share the financial responsibility for charging infrastructure. This proactive approach has propelled the swift expansion of EV charging facilities in multi-home communities.

Addressing this intricate challenge necessitates innovative solutions and external catalysts. This is where EU legislators can play a transformative role. By introducing incentives and progressive regulations, they can facilitate the development of EV charging infrastructure in housing communities.

Elaway has been providing EV charging solutions for housing communities in Norway since 2019 and is now one of the leading players in this segment of the Norwegian market, which is a few years ahead of all other European countries. We have experimented with different business models to test what creates traction in the market and our experience is that offering apartment communities the opportunity to rent charging facilities significantly lowers the finance barrier. Elaway's approach to incentivizing charging infrastructure installation showcases a promising path forward. Our model offers customers the flexibility to purchase or rent charging facilities, catering to a wider spectrum of financial situations. This creative financing solution could act as a catalyst, encouraging more multi-home communities to embark on the EV charging journey.

To address the EV charging challenge legislatively, EU policymakers could focus on the following strategies.

Infrastructure-focused incentives: Shifting the focus of incentives from individual chargers or vehicles to charging infrastructure could inspire multi-home communities to invest collectively, acknowledging the collective benefits for all residents.

Mandatory EV charging provision: Copying Norway's approach and mandating housing communities to offer EV charging could accelerate the roll-out of charging facilities in housing communities across Europe.

Community-funded installation: Introducing policies that ensure entire housing communities contribute to financing installation, rather than relying on a small subset of early adopters, would secure sufficient funds and establish a fair and sustainable model for EV charging expansion in such communities.

Incentivizing infrastructure ownership and renting: Recognizing the varying financial capacity of multi-apartment communities, EU policymakers could extend incentives to both owned and rented charging infrastructure, accommodating diverse financial scenarios.

Aligning policies with the recommendations above, the EU could emerge as a driving force behind the accelerated deployment of EV charging infrastructure in multi-home communities. Legislative endeavors have the potential to bridge the financing gap, surmounting the challenge of limited EV adoption that is being hampered by inadequate charging facilities. A concerted effort could pave the way for a harmonious environment where electric mobility flourishes, emissions dwindle, and a sustainable future becomes a tangible reality.

At Elaway, we firmly believe that by uniting industry players and policymakers, we can steer Europe towards a future powered by clean and efficient transportation.

About the author: Harald Seip is chief marketing officer at Elaway, a company that provides EV charging solutions for housing communities in Norway, Sweden, and Germany. He oversees marketing for a company that has more than 1,100 charging stations, more than 75,000 parking spaces, and more than 10,000 active chargers in its portfolio.

IEA-PVPS has published a new guidebook to standardize Technological Innovation System (TIS) analysis across different countries for BIPV.

The TIS approach is used to investigate new technological fields and industries in and beyond the context of sustainability transitions. It seeks to understand the dynamics of an innovation ecosystem surrounding d a specific technology and is often used to identify shortcomings and define recommendations for the design of policies in support of a specific technology.

“This Guide for Technological Innovation System (TIS) Analysis BIPV offers hands-on support on theory and methods for those who want to analyze the innovation system for BIPV in their country,” the organization said. “This document can also be used as a template for a final TIS-analysis report – using the same (sub-)chapters, tables, and graphs.”

The handbook presents the rating of the performance of eight functions of the TIS related to BIPV, on a scale of one to five. The functions mentioned are knowledge development, knowledge dissemination, entrepreneurial experimentation, resource mobilization, development of social capital, legitimation, guidance of the search and market formation.

The authors of the report also provided indicators and assessment questions to better produce a well-argued paper. In addition, the report assists the users with setting country-wide targets for the development of BIPV, and also helps them formulate recommendations for overcoming issues, targeting both policymakers and industry actors.

“For those functions that are not fulfilling the target requirements, guidance is given on how to identify systemic problems that either relate to actors, institutions, interaction between actors, or infrastructural deficits,” the report notes.

The report also offers guidance on how to define BIPV correctly, how to analyze historical and technological information, and how to conduct a structural analysis of the specific target country. In addition, it looks at the available technical and knowledge solutions in the relevant market, from early concept development to a fully mature market.

A new study published by Greenpeace found widespread use of misleading numbers and strategies in reporting on emissions and climate impacts among 12 of the largest oil companies with headquarters in Europe.

The study, titled Dirty Dozen: The climate greenwashing of 12 European Oil Companies, looks into financial statements published by six of the world’s largest oil companies – Shell, TotalEnergies, BP, Equinor, Eni, Repsol, and another six smaller players that still play a major role in the energy supply of their respective European markets – OMV, PKN Orlen, MOL Group, Wintershall Dea, Petrol Group, Ina Croatia.

These companies have enjoyed huge revenues over the past year, with their 2022 profits increasing by an average of 75% over the previous year. Despite this, new investments made by the companies increased on average by just over half that amount – 37%. And 92.7% of these investments were made in the continued extraction of fossil oil and gas.

This comes in spite of the common claim among large fossil fuel companies that higher profits are necessary to provide the means to finance a transition to renewable energy, which Greenpeace describes as “like eating more to have the energy for the diet.”

All 12 of the companies in the studies produced at least 98% of their energy in 2022 from fossil fuels, with an average of just 0.3% from renewable sources. And those which are making any investment in “low carbon” technologies are focused on offsetting and carbon capture – two strategies whose effectiveness in reducing emissions is in serious doubt.

No net zero

The study also finds that while most of the companies involved have made a public commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050, none has anything resembling a coherent strategy in place to achieve this.

“…no major oil company can show a comprehensible plan for a “net zero” in 2050. There is, if at all, a slow start in the 2020s, which is then miraculously supposed to lead to a rapid transformation after 2030. In other words, the solution to the climate problem is postponed to the future or to the next CEO,” the report stated.

The report also noted a range of strategies used by some of the 12 companies that seem designed to mislead the public over their commitment to emissions reduction. From creative definitions of what constitutes “low carbon” for investment, to simply misleading visual layouts – such as Shell placing “conventional fuels” in fourth place on a list of its energy portfolio, despite these accounting for more than 90% of its energy production.

Comprehensive strategy

Greenpeace calls for various measures to be put in place to change this situation, placing efforts to reduce demand for fossil fuels at the center of its proposal. “Similar to the coal sector, the focus should therefore be on a rapid economic and political downsizing of the oil and gas sector, on skimming profits, avoiding stranded assets and, above all, on a rapid reduction of oil and gas demand,” they state.

The report calls for a comprehensive demand reduction strategy to be put in place at EU level, including a ban on short distance flights and promotion of zero-carbon fuels in long distance aviation, noting that “The benefits of these new fuels must be independently confirmed in a life-cycle approach in order to exclude, for example, the use of biofuels, which can cause high climate damage along their production chain.”

Other industries earmarked for action include marine shipping – which also requires support for alternative clean fuels, and the petrochemical industry which should see restrictions on per capita consumption of plastic materials.

Greenpeace also states that, in combination with demand reduction, these measures can be accompanied supply side measures such as windfall tax on profits, a ranking of the most environmentally damaging fossil fuel supply chains, and a stop on exploration of new oil projects across EU territories and the North Sea.

Further, the report calls for increased regulations on international oil companies, including a general ban on advertising and much tighter reporting definitions to address greenwashing in public statements.