Tesla’s test, India solar ready to roll and Japan PV all at sea pv-tech.org/friday_focus/teslas_test_india_solar_ready_to_roll_and_japan_pv_all_at_sea By Ben Willis - 05 September 2014, 10:13In Friday Focus Tesla Model S: Some claim Elon Musk has over-reached himself with his plans for a gigawatt lithium-ion battery factory. Image: Tesla. Blogger Ben Willis is head of content at Solar Media From Teslas new gigawatt battery factory to floating PV arrays in Japan, PV Tech reviews another eclectic week in the world of solar. Elon Musk dreams of electric cars Elon Musk has ended weeks of speculation by announcing Nevada as the base for his new ‘Gigafactory’, which will produce lithium-ion batteries for his signature Tesla electric cars. Musk hopes the move will slash the cost of producing expensive li-ion batteries by 30% and give sister company SolarCity a source of batteries for static storage systems. However, some think Silicon Valley’s favourite son has over-reached himself on this occasion. Analyst firm Lux Research predicts the factory will drive only a modest reduction in li-ion battery costs and lead to overcapacity as Tesla sales it believes will only be half the 500,000 targeted by the firm by 2020. Considering Musk’s usual chutzpah, one can’t help but feel he will regard Lux’s provocative punditry as all the more the reason to realise his goals. India solar revs up Could India be about to throw off the shackles that have so far restricted the country’s vast solar potential to only partial realisation? Bridge to India and Tata Power Solar reckon the country could manage a whopping 145GW of PV in the next 10 years as coal prices go up and if – it’s a big ‘if’ – it gets its solar strategy right. A report published by the two parties looked at the optimal balance of solar deployment of different scales, predicting a big role for rooftop PV. Right on cue, Delhi’s electricity regulator on Tuesday launched a net metering policy for – you’ve guessed it – rooftop solar. For this hugely important market-in-waiting in India, the success or otherwise of Delhi’s net metering efforts could be a crucial testing ground. Add to the mix the fact that the country has settled its dumping dilemma and it looks like the stage is set for solar in India to make some serious headway. The only dark cloud on the horizon is the question of whether the US will pursue its ongoing complaint with the WTO against India’s domestic content policy. Watch this space. Japan takes to the water Solar in Japan is all at sea – well, in one sense at least. A joint venture between Kyocera and French firm, Ciel et Terre, is drawing up plans for a 2.9MW floating PV array. The companies reckon aquatic solar is a viable alternative to ground-mounted projects in Japan, where land is a scarce commodity. The difficulty of finding suitable sites has been one of the factors cited for lengthy delays in projects approved for Japan’s feed-in tariff getting built. As it happens, there now appears to be some movement on this front. METI, the Japanese ministry responsible for the feed-in tariff, revealed to us this week that its threat of revoking FiT approvals for unbuilt projects is having the desired effect, with developers apparently responding to the call to get their act together. METI also quashed rumours doing the rounds that a big FiT cut is imminent. PV research spending lags behind upturn The generally positive feeling about the direction of the global solar market doesn’t yet seem to have filtered through to those at the sharp end of the business – the scientists and engineers dreaming up the industry’s next innovations. According to PV Tech’s exclusive annual analysis, despite the first glimmerings of an upturn towards the end of last year, R&D spending by the top manufacturers fell again in 2013. The number of people working in R&D units declined at an even steeper rate. This suggests that those signs of green shoots weren’t a sufficient inducement to persuade some companies to put money into developing new technologies yet. With the upturn having gathered pace in 2014 and expected to be in full swing by next year, it will be revealing to see whether the downward trend in R&D spending of late has reversed.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 22:28:18 +0000
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