The Chinese manufacturer’s PV module shipments increased 16% to touch 11.4 GW in 2018, making it the top global supplier with market share of 12.8%.
The benchmark levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for lithium-ion batteries has fallen to $187 per kilowatt-hour since the first half of 2018. The overwhelming cost improvement is making batteries paired with solar or wind projects challenge coal- and gas-fired generation for grid stability, according to BloombergNEF (BNEF).
Global energy consumption in 2018 grew by 2.3%. Electricity demand rose by 4%, nearly twice as fast as overall energy demand. China accounted for over 40% of the growth in renewable-based electricity generation, followed by Europe (25%). The United States and India together contributed another 13%.
Global solar PV tracker shipments exceeded 20 GW for the first time in 2018, with NEXTracker leading the market. While the Americas accounted for more than half of global PV tracker demand, the growth rate was strongest in the Middle East and North Africa.
Finnish clean-energy company Fortum has achieved the Lithium-ion battery recycling rate of over 80%—as against the current 50%—with a low-CO2 hydrometallurgical recycling process.
Some manufacturers have started to bring self-learning algorithms and artificial intelligence into their monitoring systems and have indicated this in our market overview. In this way, they seek to reduce the personnel costs of O&M service providers. Although humans still have the upper hand in many processes, artificial intelligence is on the rise.
Finnish clean-energy company Fortum, in cooperation with US-based inductive charging specialist Momentum Dynamics, will install induction-based infrastructure to allow for wireless charging up to 75 kilowatts.
The high efficiency series can be used in multiple application scenarios like utility-scale ground-mount and distributed PV projects. An increase in the output of modules from 370W to 415W will help reduce the balance-of-system cost by 4.5% to 8.5%, and reduce levelized cost of electricity (LCoE) by 2.5% to 4.6%.
As lithium-ion battery sales boom, suppliers of equipment for manufacturing photovoltaics are branching out into the storage industry. Are these ventures leading them to bankruptcy or to a breakthrough in storing solar energy?
Utility-scale solar power capacity will grow by double digits globally in 2019 and 2020, driven by expansions in the United States, Europe, Middle East and China.
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