TrendForce reviews the year in PV and looks at 2014
Demand from China, Japan, and USA will represent almost 50% of the total worldwide market share for solar and PV in 2014. Due to the recovery of the European market and the rise of the emerging markets, supply and demand in the PV industry will be able to achieve equilibrium. EnergyTrend research manager, Jason Huang, points out there is three major trends driving the PV industry and willmaintain industry focus for the foreseeable future.
The three trends are high-efficiency products, energy-storage systems, and mergers and acquisitions.
Although many manufacturers have started to come up with new PV technology, crystalline silicon products remain the mainstream in the overall market. Multi-si products are the most popular ones because they have excellent comparable quality, have maintained a reasonable price, and require simpler power plant design and inverter specifications.
Since 2013, module wattage has increased from 240 to 250. Multi-si cells with efficiency of 17.2%~17.6% are the most common cells. Following the increased use of high-efficiency cells, downstream developers acquire modules with higher wattage. It's projected that cell efficiency will rise to 17.6%~17.8% in the first half of 2014. While 60 cells on a module is equivalent to 250/255W, an increase to 72 cells per module will see wattage increase to 300/305W. By the end of 2014, the mainstream will be products above 255/305W with efficiencies between 17.8%~18%.
Many countries have switched PV development focus to self-consumption or peak-electricity usage adjustment with subsidies cut and in some cases cancelled. Residential systems have maintained strong growth and have counter balanced any slowing of large-scale power plants development. Energy-storage systems will definitely be driving force for the PV industry as growth will depend on storage success in some regions. Energy-storage subsidy plans such as those announced in Germany and Japan will instigate new targets being set, driving the market.
EnergyTrend believes tit will become harder to sell energy-storage systems as isolated unit., It will be more likely to sell them with a complete PV systems direct from PV manufacturers. Chinese manufacturers with the biggest slice of the module export market, selling energy-storage systems with PV systems will be the best way for them to do business in Europe especially signing an agreement of minimum price and volume limit with EU.
Presently energy-storage volume in combination with residential systems is about 3kWh~7kWh. Despite adding an energy-storage system may double the cost of a PV system, there is a move to subsidise this area and shrinking battery prices the extra cost may soon only be 1.3~1.7 times the PV system price in 2014. The changing developments for energy-storage systems could push the potential forward and expand the market. Rising energy prices will only speed this up.
Mergers and acquisition has been the focus in 2013. In China, LDK handed over their equity to Tongwei and Shunfeng acquired Suntech. In the overseas markets, Solarworld took over Bosch Solar and Astronergy bought Conergy's module factory. All of the companies being acquired had expressed market difficulty for some time. No company with high market shares began a joint venture. With increased demand in the market, companies have begun to set sales targets for next year. Downstream development trends show that industrial consolidation will become more obvious in 2014.
Huang suggests that market watchers should keep an eye on companies with market share leaving the industry as this will impact the other companies share values the most drastically. With PV cost continuously declining, many large oil and grid companies are beginning to take PV energy into consideration once more. In 2014, there will be more energy companies putting PV energy back into their energy development roadmap and PV companies will have to clarify who will be the player with the most chips in the future energy market.
