NEWS CENTER

Recently, PV Europe published a document describing the five most important trends in the photovoltaic industry, believing that photovoltaic is booming. At the same time, the industry is in a state of drastic changes, especially these five trends will shape the market in the next few years.

In this paper, a photovoltaic form laid on railway sleepers is specially mentioned. Global photovoltaic has collected relevant information and sorted it out in this paper.

Photovoltaic is developing rapidly

The social voice is getting louder and louder: politics must do more for climate protection. Photovoltaic power generation is undoubtedly an important part of energy transformation. Today, photovoltaic has contributed a considerable share in the energy structure. By the end of 2020, Germany had installed photovoltaic modules with a nominal capacity of 54 gigawatts, distributed in 2million systems. The power generation in 2020 was 50.6 TWH, accounting for 9.6% of the total electricity consumption in Germany.

On sunny days, photovoltaic power generation sometimes actually accounts for two-thirds of current electricity consumption. The power generation cost of the new large-scale megawatt system is 3 - 5.5 cents / kWh, while the price of the small roof system is slightly higher, 6 - 11 cents / kWh, but in general, they are already cheaper than fossil fuel power plants.

In the long run, this development is likely to continue, although component prices have recently risen due to supply bottlenecks after the covid-19 pandemic. The following trends can be drawn from these facts:

Trend 1: solar projects are getting bigger and bigger

Due to the low cost of power generation, large-scale photovoltaic power stations have price advantages. From the photovoltaic deployment in Austria, we can see that the larger photovoltaic power stations are reflected in the economies of scale in terms of cost, and the ambitious expansion goal of the country cannot be achieved through small factories at all.

Therefore, Austria relies on large photovoltaic parks, such as the photovoltaic Park in Sch ö nkirchen reyersdorf, northeast of Vienna. Austria's largest open-air photovoltaic power station was put into operation there in 2020. It consists of 34600 components, covers an area of 13.3 hectares, is equivalent to about 18 football fields, and has an installed capacity of 11.5 megawatts. It generates nearly 11 gigawatt hours of electricity every year, which is equivalent to the electricity consumption of 3400 households.

However, this cannot be compared with the largest photovoltaic Park in the world. South Korea's new Wanjin project has built three photovoltaic parks, each with an installed capacity of 99 MW. These records are broken almost every month. At present, India's bhadla solar Park ranks first with 2245 megawatts of capacity, covering an area of 57 square kilometers, equivalent to about 8000 football fields.

Trend 2: toughness becomes more important

The floods in western Germany in mid July may only be a harbinger: climate experts predict that extreme weather events will become more frequent in the future, which will have an impact on the construction and maintenance of photovoltaic systems. Ultraviolet radiation may increase, wind speed and hail precipitation will also increase, and photovoltaic modules must be able to withstand this situation, as must the electrical connection system. If a power station is destroyed, it should be rebuilt as soon as possible, which requires logistics to build new power generation capacity in a few days or even hours. The same applies to natural disasters such as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.

Therefore, the supplier must have all the general components for the construction of photovoltaic power stations, which are available from stock in many regions of the world, so that they can be replaced on site quickly in case of emergency. During the covid-19 pandemic, many supply chains collapsed. For example, the photovoltaic industry currently encounters bottlenecks in the supply of components, as well as component brackets or inverter electronic components and other accessories. In this regard, companies that have flexible supply chains and can also assist in handling customs procedures have advantages.

Trend 3: photovoltaic industry is becoming more and more efficient

This does not mean the efficiency of photovoltaic modules. The efficiency of photovoltaic modules has been improving for decades and will continue to set new records in the future. Instead, we are talking about the efficiency of the production, installation and disposal of components. For single crystal photovoltaic modules, the calculated carbon dioxide emission per kWh is 35 to 57 grams, which is mainly produced in the production process. This value is far lower than that of fossil energy producers, and it is declining. This is also because solar energy makes the energy portfolio cleaner, thereby reducing emissions in the production process. In addition, European solar modules have recycling obligations, and most components, such as aluminum frames and glass, will be recycled.

There is further potential for savings during installation, especially in large systems. There, thousands of identical components are always installed at the same intervals, which means that installers can use pre assembled cables of appropriate length, and they just need to plug in. This can save time and eliminate defects that can never be solved, completely eliminating manual assembly on the construction site.

Trend 4: power grids and energy storage units are being upgraded to use renewable energy

When the sun shines, photovoltaic power generation has covered up to two-thirds of the current electricity consumption in Germany. When the weather is bad, other renewable energy sources, such as wind energy, must be provided or energy storage units must be involved. There are dozens of ways to do this, from electric vehicle battery energy storage to mechanical pumped storage, and huge hydrogen energy storage. Because this will make the energy network more decentralized, it must expand and, most importantly, become more intelligent.

Trend 5: solar systems become more diverse

Whether on the existing roof or on the site - so far, these are the options for building photovoltaic systems. But only a limited number of roofs allow solar power to compete with other types of land use in open spaces. In recent years, many other options have emerged:

-Facade integrated photovoltaic: the idea behind this is that houses need walls, windows and roof tiles anyway, and solar cells can be directly integrated there to turn high-rise buildings into batteries;

-Agri PV: Germany has nearly 17million hectares of available agricultural land. Examples from other countries show that photovoltaic systems can protect fertile soil and create species rich biological communities for shade loving plants - in fact, they can become grazing places for sheep;

-Photovoltaic on the street: here, photovoltaic modules can be integrated into the noise barrier, or actually used as the road surface on the road. On the railway line, PV can be placed on sleepers between tracks. The test in this regard is promising, and the relevant authorities are trying to obtain approval;

-Floating photovoltaic: from 2022, a floating solar park with a capacity of about 2200 MW will be built in Batam Island, Indonesia, covering about 16 square kilometers of the duliangkang reservoir. Fraunhofer ISE estimates that Germany can install 2.74 gigawatts of photovoltaic power through floating photovoltaic power generation. Abandoned open-pit mining lakes are particularly suitable. In a quarry in Weize, gravel pit operators have launched a 150 x 50 meter solar island for 750 kW self-sufficiency.

The cables used in these photovoltaic systems must not only withstand wind, weather and ultraviolet radiation, but also may be permanently submerged underwater (floating photovoltaic), exposed to increased vibration (photovoltaic in orbit) or must disappear invisibly behind the glass curtain wall in the future.

These and other trends will affect the photovoltaic market in the coming years.