OVERVIEW - Can utility scale solar reach 100 GW in 2016?

Provisional 2015 year-end figures should be available within the next few weeks and are expected to show global installed capacity of utility-scale (5 MWp or more) solar power plants in excess of 60 GW.

While awaiting the final figure, let’s take the opportunity to look at the prevailing trends for the sector and the prospects for 2016.

CONTINUING GROWTH ASSURED

In many parts of the world large-scale solar generation has established itself as the fastest growing energy sector over recent years. The Paris Agreement of COP21 should enhance this impetus, with accelerated solar roll-out becoming central to many countries’ implementation plans.

Continuing progress towards grid parity makes solar energy the low cost option in many areas, and will allow governments to reduce or phase out financial incentives, while meeting their sustainable energy targets. Some have already mapped the pathway.

The United States, for example, has confirmed that Investment Tax Credits (itc), which were due to end in 2016, will now continue to 2019 and then taper down to 2023 – when hopefully they will no longer be necessary.

RISE OF THE SOLAR AUCTIONS

Other countries meanwhile are evolving their incentive mechanisms. Many are moving away from direct support – in the form of feed-in tariffs for example – towards mechanisms designed to fill the declining gap between solar generation costs and market prices. This takes the form of reverse auctions where contracts are completed with those solar power producers who offer the lowest kWh price. This is often expressed as a ‘contract for difference’ between the solar energy cost and the prevailing price on the electricity grid; what India graphically calls ‘viability gap funding’.

Such auctions now routinely take place in Germany, Brazil and Turkey. The UK has trialled one round (with mixed success). However the leader is India, where over 10 GW of capacity has been tendered in the last year or so thanks to further rounds of the national JNNSM programme and to state initiatives by Telangana, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh amongst others.

OTHER RECENT UTILITY-SCALE PV NEWS

Finally the regular monthly look at interesting and new developments in December:

-- Europe’s largest PV power plant, the 300-MWp Cestas project was inaugurated by Neoen in South West France.

-- Denmark commissioned its first utility-scale project of 61 MWp in the grounds of the picturesque Lerchenborg Palace.

-- Russia and Uruguay also commissioned their largest installations to date each over 20 MW alternating current (AC).

-- Poland has announced its entry into the utility-scale solar arena with a 40-MW project to be built in West Pomerania.

Source of data

All the details in these posts are based on the Wiki-Solar Database of some 4,500 utility-scale PV solar projects around the world. Unless otherwise stated, capacities are expressed in terms of the AC output of the plant, and ‘utility-scale’ is defined as projects of 4 MW AC and over.

About the author:

Philip Wolfe has been in renewables since the 1970’s when he was founder Chief Executive of BP Solar. He led companies in the PV sector until the early 2000’s. Since then he has undertaken more broadly-based roles in renewable and community energy. His book on utility-scale solar was published in 2012.

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!