IHS Markit: Eight important trends in the global PV market in 2019
Despite uncertainty and price volatility in the global solar industry, demand for solar PV continued to grow in 2018, with annual installed capacity reaching the long-awaited milestone of 10 gigawatts.
Edurne Zoco, head of solar research at IHS Markit, said: "As solar becomes increasingly competitive with traditional power generation sources, companies are investing in the renewable energy sector as never before due to growing revenue opportunities and pressure to improve sustainability.
Solar and other renewable energy sources also play a key role in the decentralization and digitization of the power system, the so-called 'energy transition,' which is currently being discussed by many governments and other agencies."
Recently, IHS Markit released its 2019 PV Industry Forecast White Paper, revealing eight important trends that will drive the PV market in 2019.
1, global PV installed capacity will return to double-digit growth, the fourth quarter of 2019 installed capacity will reach a record level. This year will be the first time since 2011 that all six regions of the world will see an increase in installed PV capacity. The economies of Europe, the Middle East, North America, South and Central America, Africa and Asia Pacific will grow by 18% year on year.
In 2019, Europe's PV demand will return to 2012 levels, and the region will install 18GW of PV projects during the year, a milestone not achieved since 2012. Aided by increasing opportunities to sign Private Purchase Power Agreements (PPAs), increasingly attractive economic entities are helping to reignite the European PV market.
3. Transformation of old power stations and improvement of power generation. As Europe's infrastructure ages, retrofitting and re-powering photovoltaic plants will become increasingly important. By the beginning of 2019, more than 40GW of photovoltaic systems in Europe will be more than six years old. Technology costs have fallen dramatically since these plants were built, so upgrading older PV plants to increase their output and return on investment is becoming more common.
4, China's policy decisions will continue to influence the global photovoltaic trend, promote the domestic market to the development of affordable Internet access. It is estimated that China accounted for 65% of the global PV module production and 41% of the global installed capacity in 2018, so China clearly determines the supply and demand balance in the industry. This trend will be more evident than ever in 2019, as the industry awaits the release of China's latest subsidy policy to determine how the year unfolds.
5, more than 500 megawatt-hours (MWh) of energy storage batteries will be applied to utility-scale solar power plants in North America. The combination of intermittent renewable energy and storage has long been considered key to providing scalable, dispatchable, clean energy. In 2019, the first meaningful such systems will be operational, mostly in North America.
6, the diversification of PV inverter suppliers will continue as they continue to struggle with stagnant revenues. As price pressure and intense competition continue, PV inverter suppliers will expand into different adjacent industries.
7, as the share of efficient products in the market continues to increase, the competition of 400 watts photovoltaic modules will heat up. Solar photovoltaic power has become a highly competitive energy source, as the average price of solar modules has dropped by more than 80 percent in the last decade. These cost improvements were driven by continued improvements in battery and component efficiency, which increased by approximately 25% over the same period.
8, grid digitization continues to be a major trend in the power industry and the solar industry. IHS Markit predicts that by 2019, an average of 30,000 new PV inverters will be delivered every day, reaching 11 million throughout the year, and these devices will all be connected to smart connected platforms.
