The European Commission has published its ‘Horizon Europe Strategic Plan 2025-2027,’ where it decided to form an official Co-Programmed European Partnership for solar with the European Technology and Innovation Platform (ETIP PV).
Chinese PV module and cell manfacturer Longi and London based Ferroglobe PLC, producer of Silicon Metal and Ferroalloys, have entered into a long-term supply agreement.
The PV market is booming. But European manufacturers are in crisis mode due to the overwhelmingly favourable competition from China. Companies such as Meyer Burger are threatening to close down module production. They are calling for resilience bonuses, among other incentives.
Spain has introduced a new incentive scheme aimed at strengthening its clean-tech supply chain, including PV manufacturing. The initiative is endorsed by the European Solar Manufacturing Council (ESMC).
Analysis from McKinsey & Company’s 2023 Global Energy Perspective report shows that tackling energy transition technology bottlenecks with substitute materials, innovation, infrastructure build out and regulation will be crucial to achieving net zero targets
Module prices continue to fall, but not as fast as in the past weeks. There are signs that the downward slide is slowly coming to an end. Because at the current prices, no one is earning anything.
The resilience of supply chains for key technologies for the energy transition, such as photovoltaics and wind power, is in a poor state in Europe. Import dependency, especially on China, is immensely high. A study shows this and gives recommendations.
Solaredge has signed a multi-year agreement with Infineon to supply chips for its solar and storage products. New product development is also on the agenda.
BayWa r.e. Solar Trade and Seacon Logistics will develop a Netherlands based fully climate-neutral logistics centre with over 50,000 m² of storage capacity for photovoltaic components.
Due to artificial silicon price increase of the Chinese producers, Gerard Scheper, CEO of European Solar, sees the solar module price returning to the 'old normal' of about 0.25 euros per watt peak.
SMA increased its turnover by 8.4 per cent in 2022. The company started the new year with a huge order backlog and expects turnover to continue to rise.
European Solar Manufacturing Council (ESMC) responds to the proposals of the European Commission adopted amending the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER), and the proposed Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework (TCTF).
How to protect the European PV industry from supply interruptions and price increases? The concept of bringing PV module manufacturing back to Europe has been recently gaining traction among industry leaders. However, the discussion is light on numbers, making it difficult to understand the trade-offs for the key stakeholders.
BloombergNEF’s annual battery price survey finds that prices have increased by 7 per cent from 2021 to 2022. This has been the first price rise since the survey began 12 years ago.
Interview: Neil McKee, member of the leadership team of BHC Distributors Ltd about exploding energy prices, the growing PV market in Ireland, supply chain bottlenecks and quality aspects. The company is a Premium Partner Gold of Solarwatt.
The conference Sustainable Solar Europe takes place in Brussels, 27 October, organized by Intersolar Europe and SolarPower Europe.
European orders for photovoltaic equipment increased by 62 percent in the second quarter of 2022, VDMA (Mechanical Engineering Industry Association, Germany) reports.
Last week it was reported that the ABN AMRO Transition Commodity Price Index had fallen by 22 percent in the 21 weeks leading up to it. That doesn’t seem to match with the stories about the ever-rising prices of Chinese polysilicon, but that too has stabilized. Even if it is artificial, our guest author Gerard Scheper, CEO of European Solar explains: "They just capped the price."
In the context of EU legislative proposals on corporate responsibility in supply chains, the European solar industry has published its concrete plan towards a more responsible, transparent, and sustainable value chain.
Interview: Moritz Rolf, Director Central & Eastern Europe, Sungrow EMEA, talks about new products and applications, supply chain issues, costs, sustainability and a possible future production in Europe.
Rock Tech Lithium has agreed to collaborate with Fraunhofer Umsicht and supply chain tracking company Circulor to provide carbon-neutral lithium from Europe.
In a recent communication, Dutch mounting systems manufacturer Van der Valk Solar Systems have looked back at 2021 with all its challenges. More importantly, however, the prospects for 2022 are promising:
Photovoltaic wholesaler Krannich Solar announced yesterday that it is continuing to grow and in doing so establishes subsidiaries in China, Romania, Hungary, Australia and the USA.
Driven by the strong supply dependencies that have become apparent as a result of the Corona pandemic and by political tailwinds, there are first concrete steps for a return of PV manufacturing to Europe.
Weather extremes can cause economic ripples along our supply chains. If they occur at roughly the same time the ripples start interacting and can amplify even if they occur at completely different places around the world, a new study shows.
