Suntech Supplies Panels for Edwards Air Force Base Solar Project

Suntech recently supplied 3.4 MW of panels for a solar installation at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California. The solar installation at Edwards Air Force Base was designed, financed, and installed by Borrego Solar at no upfront cost to Edwards Air Force Base. The more than 12,000 solar panels provided for the project, which started generating power in February 2012, were made at Suntech's manufacturing facility in Goodyear, Arizona. Solar panels produced at Suntech's Goodyear facility are compliant for procurement in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and Buy American Act projects.

China's Ministry of Finance Announces Subsidies for Wind, Solar

China's Ministry of Finance (MOF) has promulgated a set of rules that specifies the standards of subsidy for on-grid electricity generated by wind power and solar energy. According to the regulations on management of subsidy for renewable energy-generated electricity price released by the MOF, China will subsidize 0.01 yuan/kilowatt hour for on-grid electricity transmitted at a length within 50 kilometers, 0.02 yuan/kilowatt hour for a transmission length at 50-100 kilometers, and 0.03 yuan/kilowatt hour for a transmission length longer than 100 kilometers. For those public renewable energy power generating systems invested or subsidized by the State, China will offer a subsidy of 4,000 yuan/kilowatt each year.

IMS Research: China's FIT Drives PV Inverter Market

The China PV inverter market, driven by the introduction of the national feed-in-tariff (FIT), grew by over 400% in 2011 to reach more than 2.5 GW in shipments, according IMS Research. The research institute also found that the market was highly consolidated in 2011 and the 10 largest suppliers, which accounted for over 80% of shipments, included only one non China-based manufacturer. The strong growth of the Chinese market and the dominance of domestic suppliers will lead to China-based manufacturers gaining significant share of the global PV inverter market, the research firm concluded. IMS Research found that China's release of its national FIT scheme in July, 2011 drove installations to reach some 2.4GW in the year. As a result, this created a PV inverter market worth more than US$300 million. Unlike other major PV markets however, demand for inverters is not widely spread across many model types and inverters rated at 500kW were by far the most popular last year. Commented Frank Xie, senior analyst of IMS Research, "500kW inverters dominated utility-scale installations last year, as they best fulfill the project developers' requirements to install ground-mount stations quickly, beating the end of year FIT reduction. As a result they represented more than three-quarters of inverter shipments last year." The research firm indicated that Sungrow Power Supply, which recently listed on the China stock market, was by far the largest supplier to the market in 2011, holding a share of more than one-third. China-based suppliers dominated the domestic market last year, and Elettronica Santerno was the only western supplier ranked in the top 10 in 2011. "Due to the drastically growing China PV market, inverters shipped to China accounted for 10% of global shipments in 2011," added Xie.

JinkoSolar Expands Asia Business

When I was at the CanSIA conference in Toronto in October 2011, I was impressed by JinkoSolar's booth and the size of its presence. The company, a vertically integrated solar power product manufacturer based in China, announced on 29 March 2012 that it is expanding its Asia operations and opening its new Singapore office. The regional headquarters will supervise sales, logistics, financing, project development and customer service across the country, which is a growing hub of solar energy research and development. JinkoSolar's rapid global expansion over the past few years now includes nine sales and marketing offices located on four continents worldwide. As one of the largest module manufacturer in the world, these regional hubs are a critical integration point for the company's regional operations.

Chinese Solar Stocks Slide on Italian Subsidies Threat

Bloomberg reported last week that solar stocks led a decline in Chinese shares traded in New York on speculation that Italy will follow Germany in cutting subsidies to the industry, dimming the outlook for global installations.

LDK Solar tumbled the most in four days while Trina Solar dropped to a two-week low. The Bloomberg China-US Equity Index of the most-traded Chinese shares in the US lost 0.3 percent to 105.42 yesterday, falling for the first time in three days. China Petroleum & Chemical, Asia’s largest refiner, traded at its biggest discount to Hong Kong shares in three months.

Italy, the world’s second-largest solar market, is proposing to cut its industry subsidy by 50 percent, Citigroup Inc. technology analyst Timothy Arcuri said in a research note e-mailed yesterday, citing a first draft of the European nation’s fifth energy plan that the bank had obtained. Germany, the biggest solar market, will reduce aid to the industry by as much as 29 percent from April 1.

The iShares FTSE China 25 Index Fund, the biggest Chinese exchange-traded fund in the US, retreated 0.2 percent to USD37.25, after climbing the most in two weeks on March 26.

China's State Grid Corporation Investing $100 bln in Smart Grid Technology

I have said here before that we need to see two things before taking China's efforts to build a domestic solar market seriously: 1) A nation-wide, well-implemented feed-in tariff; 2) A serious effort to address transmission issues.

Last week there was another indication that China is addressing its lack of grids which can accomodate utility-level solar projects. On 29 March 2012, China's State Grid Corporation announced it will invest $473.1 billion in power grid construction over five years, about $100 billion of which will be directed toward smart grid technology.

This investment could make China the world's largest smart grid market, according to a company profile published by Zpryme Research and Consulting. The report says China is planning to install over 300 million smart meters by the end of 2015, from having only 36 million in 2011.

State Grid's sales have increased by an average of 12.6 percent a year from 2006 to 2011, with electricity sales growing from 1,710 terawatt-hours (TWh) to 3,093 TWh within the period.