Despite slight monthly fluctuations, prices for Asian panels remain stable overall, whereas prices for European products have seen a gradual but steady decline.
In August, the average watt-peak price for solar panels produced in China will converge for the first time in recent PV history with prices for Europe-produced solar modules. In view of the fact that much lower prices are possible on the world market, this is a dubious moment and for many industry players certainly no cause for celebration.
Still, one wonders how economically feasible it is to build utility-scale and ground-mounted at current module prices and feed-in tariffs. Many EPCs are therefore holding out the hope of grabbing a piece of the public tender pie in Germany, and not without considerable risk. For most of them, however, the chances are not so good. Indeed, the pie is so small (only 150 MWp per tender round), that two-thirds of the participants will come away empty-handed. Not until Germany’s Federal Network Agency makes its assessment will it be clear whether bids significantly higher than the current rates of compensation will be awarded and if new players will be among the awardees or whether the contracts will be awarded to the same companies who came out on top in the first round.
Since the beginning of Germany’s school holiday season in mid-July, the interest in PV appears to have tapered off further in the small plant sector. Moreover, the high summer temperatures scarcely permit long periods of outdoor work, which has added to Central European installers’ woes. But even PV systems are running up against their limits – both inverters and crystalline modules are operating at lower efficiency due to the high outdoor temperatures. Once again, the technology to achieve a better solar yield both in low light and at high outside temperatures is lacking. Thin-film modules have a well-known advantage under such conditions but have been pushed into a niche. Currently there are hardly any available products on the market, let alone groundbreaking new developments.
However, the latest efficiency announcements in the field of commercially produced CIGS modules, in the range 20% to 22%, are very promising. But the panel manufacturers involved owe us an answer to the question of whether economies of scale can actually make this technology more cost-effective than crystalline silicon. This is easier to believe coming from developers of organic photovoltaics (OPV) because they are not reliant on a ready supply of rare chemical elements or complex manufacturing processes. The active layers can easily be printed on suitable substrates – on transparent films or sheets of glass, for instance. Again, with OPV, respectable efficiencies, up to 12%, can now be achieved. Of particular note is the Dresden-based company Heliatek, which was recently honored by the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer 2015. The company’s ultra-lightweight solar-active film could be particularly important in bringing about a breakthrough in building-integrated photovoltaics.