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SFCE Sept 7
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Net metering law comes into effect in Pakistan for solar up to 1MW
Sep 7, 2015 | PV Tech
By Andy Colthorpe
Pakistan’s energy regulator, NEPRA (National Electric Power Regulatory Authority), has approved and put into effect net metering schemes for solar and wind generation of up to 1MW. -
Yingli Fights to Survive as Another Solar King Dethroned
Sep 7, 2015 | Bloomberg
By Alex Nussbaum
Rising to the top of the solar industry is the easy part. Staying there has proven more of a challenge. No one illustrates that better these days than Yingli Green Energy Holding Co., which was until last year the world’s biggest panel company by shipments. It’s lost two-thirds of its market value in 2015 and in May acknowledged “substantial doubt” about whether it can stay afloat amid a pile of debt. The Baoding, China-based manufacturer will report second-quarter results Tuesday and analysts are expecting a 16th straight loss. -
Suntech Owner Shunfeng International Buys Majority Stake In Suniva
Sep 6, 2015 | Clean Technica
By James Ayre
The owner of Suntech, currently one of the largest solar energy companies in the world, Shunfeng International, has acquired a majority stake in the US-based solar cell + module manufacturer Suniva, according to recent reports. -
EU-China solar dispute set to resurface as key deadline nears
Sep 7, 2015 | PV Tech
By John Parnell
The EU-China solar trade dispute looks set to reignite with every indication suggesting that EU ProSun will request a review of the impending expiry of duties on Chinese solar imports into Europe put in place in 2013. -
Energy poverty, the plight that a billion people need not endure
Sep 6, 2015 | Financial Times
By Nick Butler
For one person in six, worldwide energy is not a tradeable commodity but a matter of survival — and it takes the form not of electricity from the socket or petrol from the pump but wood or dung collected by hand. -
At U.N. climate talks, growing frustration at 'snail's pace'
Sep 4, 2015 | Reuters
By ALISTER DOYLE
The "snail's pace" of progress on an agreement to combat climate change caused widening unease at U.N. negotiations on Friday, with time fast running out before a Paris summit at which a global accord is due to be reached. -
Japan’s utilities ‘still at very first stage’ of learning to integrate renewables
Sep 4, 2015 | PV Tech
By Andy Colthorpe
Despite a vast increase in generation, difficulties in integrating renewable energy to Japan’s electricity networks shows that the country’s utilities are still “at the very first stage” of learning to do so, the director of the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation (JREF) has said.
SFCE News
Industry News
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Net metering law comes into effect in Pakistan for solar up to 1MW
Sep 7, 2015 | PV Tech
By Andy Colthorpe
Pakistan’s energy regulator, NEPRA (National Electric Power Regulatory Authority), has approved and put into effect net metering schemes for solar and wind generation of up to 1MW.
The plans were drafted in October 2014 and approved at government level as far back as January of this year. NEPRA made its announcement last week that it was “pleased” to announce what it called a “framework for the regulation of Distributed Generation by using alternative and renewable energy net metering”. The issue of the notification on 1 September put the new scheme into force immediately.
NEPRA will grant generation licences to solar and wind system owners, who will need to register the critical equipment used - the maker and model of inverter and generator being the key components in this regard. Among other technical considerations, the generator must also install a manual disconnect device to take the system off the network if necessary.
Distributed generators that sign up to the scheme must pay a one-off fee to NEPRA. The charges range from PKR500 (US$4.80) for systems between 20kW and 50kW, and up to PKR5,000 for systems of 100kW to 1,000kW, although those of 20kW capacity or below will be exempted.
The scheme also outlines the process under which both would-be generators and distribution companies must operate, including the timeline for approvals. Applicants should receive acknowledgement of receipt from distribution companies within five days of sending in their forms, unless the application form has been filled inadequately, in which case applicants will hear back within seven days. Following that, the distribution company will carry out a technical review – the only part of the process for which an indeterminate time frame is allowed – before replying within three days if connection is not feasible, or within seven working days if approval has been met.
International law firm Eversheds has described Pakistan as “one of the most exciting renewables markets globally, with an abundance of potential”. Last week Eversheds held an event in London with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, where Pakistani government officials and experts discussed the country's renewable energy programmes,
"Pakistan’s renewable market is relatively new but it provides an attractive investment opportunity with compelling structures which make it bankable as well as marketable," Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB) of Pakistan's CEO, Amjad Ali Awansaid said at the event.
"The government has a shared vision and a commitment to developing a clean energy regime. It is supporting investors and developers through various incentives and has removed certain challenges such as making land accessible and aligning project development with grid capacity."
The country has introduced feed-in tariffs (FiTs) for larger systems, leading to companies such as Switzerland’s Meeco to carry out a number of commercial rooftop installations under power purchase agreements (PPAs). Meanwhile aleo Solar, headquartered in Germany but owned by Taiwanese company Sunrise Global Energy, kicked off its involvement in Pakistan in March by providing PV modules to 18 solar systems of 100kWp capacity each in rural areas where diesel is still one of the main sources of fuel. The aleo Solar systems will be linked to energy storage to maximise the use of solar. Similarly, last month meteocontrol China, a subsidiary of Shunfeng International Clean Energy said it would add integrated remote control systems to 100MW of a larger 900MW project in Punjab. The move to add net metering is hoped to add momentum to the residential and smaller scale markets.
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Yingli Fights to Survive as Another Solar King Dethroned
Sep 7, 2015 | Bloomberg
By Alex Nussbaum
Rising to the top of the solar industry is the easy part. Staying there has proven more of a challenge.
No one illustrates that better these days than Yingli Green Energy Holding Co., which was until last year the world’s biggest panel company by shipments. It’s lost two-thirds of its market value in 2015 and in May acknowledged “substantial doubt” about whether it can stay afloat amid a pile of debt. The Baoding, China-based manufacturer will report second-quarter results Tuesday and analysts are expecting a 16th straight loss.
It’s a familiar story in the solar business. Yingli followed Suntech Power Holdings Co., another Chinese panelmaker that held, and lost the top spot in the industry. Before that, Germany’s Q-Cells SE held the No. 1 position. Both went bankrupt, felled by debt and high costs in an industry where prices have plunged.
“If you have a strained balance sheet and are not able to financially sustain yourself, that can prove lethal in this industry,” said Pavel Molchanov, a Houston-based analyst with Raymond James Financial Inc. “Yingli is another example.”
The panel-maker had a market value of $132 million Friday. It had about $398 million in cash and owed $2.31 billion in long- and short-term debt as of March 31, according to its first-quarter report. In August, it said profit margins will be 7 percent to 8 percent for the second quarter, down by half from the prior period, due to higher production costs, declining prices and low factory-utilization rates.
That’s not what the company forecast in June, when Chief Financial Officer Wang Yiyu told analysts on a conference call that second-quarter margins would be “slightly below” the first quarter and Yingli would “gradually increase” utilization rates this year.
The company is trying to raise money to repay a local venture’s bond that’s due next month, Jean Tian, an investor relations officer, said on Monday. Yingli will raise money by selling land and from other cash flows to help cover Baoding Tianwei Yingli New Energy Resources Co.’s 1 billion yuan bond coming due on Oct. 13., the official said.Utilization Rates
Debt, utilization and margins all tie together to show a company in trouble. Yingli borrowed money to build factories, which aren’t running at full speed. That drives down margins, erodes profit and makes it tough to repay loans.
Yingli was among dozens of Chinese companies that flooded into the solar business over the past decade. The influx helped push panel prices down more than two-thirds since 2010. It also led to a global oversupply that pushed at least 30 companies in bankruptcy. While the survivors have mostly returned to profitability, Yingli has been hamstrung by debt.
The company was more aggressive than rivals at taking on debt to expand capacity and win market share, said Mahesh Sanganeria, an RBC Capital Markets analyst in San Francisco.
“It was an industry with a very low barrier to entry and at the time people were making a 30 percent gross margin, that looked very lucrative if you thought it was going to stay that way,” Sanganeria said. “You tend to forget that things change.”Polysilicon Factory
One of those investments was the 2009 purchase of Cyber Power Group Ltd. for $77.6 million, a company that makes polysilicon, the main raw material in solar cells. Yingli’s founder and Chief Executive Officer Miao Liansheng invested another $270 million to upgrade the plant. The project made more sense then, when the material sold for $400 a kilogram; today, it can be bought for less than $20, said Angelo Zino, an S&P Capital IQ analyst in New York.
Yingli spent aggressively on marketing as well, including sponsoring the World Cup. Its logo was prominent during matches in Brazil last year.
“They spent on capacity, they spent quite a bit on marketing,” Sanganeria said. “They took everything to the extreme.”Suntech and Q-Cells faced similar issues, borrowing to expand capacity and then finding themselves constrained by debt, said Raymond James’ Molchanov. Both struggled to cut manufacturing costs fast enough to keep up with the market. The challenge was exacerbated starting in 2011 when slowing demand in Europe led to a global oversupply of panels and falling prices.Suntech Bankruptcy
Suntech, the biggest supplier at the depths of the solar slump, missed a bond payment in March 2013 and was pulled into bankruptcy. Its founder Shi Zhengrong, once China’s richest man, was ousted and the company was bought last year by Shunfeng International Clean Energy Ltd.
Before China dominated solar manufacturing, the industry was centered in Germany, one of the earliest nations to embrace clean energy, and Q-Cells was the top supplier. Once the Chinese producers swept in and prices fell, Q-Cells was unable to compete. It declared bankruptcy in 2012 and was acquired by South Korea’s Hanwha Group. Messages seeking comment from Hanwha and Shunfeng weren’t returned.
The biggest panel maker now is Trina Solar Ltd., a Chinese supplier that won the crown after reporting 3.66 gigawatts of shipments for 2014, compared to Yingli’s 3.36 gigawatts. Trina is in stronger shape, with 20 percent margins in the second quarter, and a string of profitable quarters dating to late 2013.
Unlike forebears that failed, Trina has focused on making panels and outsourced more capital-intensive parts of the business, Zino said.‘Better Balance Sheet’
“They’ve been able to maintain a better balance sheet,” he said. “We’re excited about Trina. They’ve got a better business model.”
Yingli is facing a 1 billion-yuan ($157 million) bond payment in October, and has a 1.4 billion-yuan note that matures seven months later. In May, the company said that its “substantial indebtedness and net loss” could affect its ability to meet its obligations. Its American depositary receipts slumped a record 37 percent the next trading day, and in an e-mailed statement the company said it was confident it could make its payments.
It may take a debt reorganization for the company to survive, said Sanganeria.
With debt far exceeding the company’s market capitalization, “what value do you have?” he asked. “Relatively speaking, nothing. The company is owned by the debt holders, pretty much. At some point, they will have to decide what to do with it.”
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Suntech Owner Shunfeng International Buys Majority Stake In Suniva
Sep 6, 2015 | Clean Technica
By James Ayre
The owner of Suntech, currently one of the largest solar energy companies in the world, Shunfeng International, has acquired a majority stake in the US-based solar cell + module manufacturer Suniva, according to recent reports.
Shunfeng is now a 63% stakeholder in Suniva. Other minority stakeowners currently include: Goldman Sachs, NEA, Prelude Ventures, and Warburg Pincus.
Given that the Suntech brand is currently exposed to a cumulative duty of 54.02% (an anti-dumping tariff rate of 33.08% + a countervailing duty of 20.94%) when selling in the US, one can easily surmise the reason for the Suniva buy-in — Shunfeng will now have a better means of entering more strongly into the American market.
With regard to the details of the acquisition, Greentech Media has more:
According to a Hong Kong exchange document, “The Consideration is US$57,760,000, which is to be settled as follows: (a) the Company shall make the Cash Contribution of US$12,000,000 upon Completion; (b) for the remaining portion of the Consideration, the Company shall allot and issue 70,928,000 new Shares at the Issue Price to the Participating Stockholders.”
Suniva lost $15 million in 2014, less than the $44 million it lost in 2013, according to the same document. According to GTM Research’s PV Pulse and GTM solar analyst Jade Jones, Suniva is the No 2 US c-Si manufacturer in terms of total capacity. The investment by SFCE will allow Suniva to expand its capacity to over 400 megawatts.
It’s probably worth a reminder here that despite the events of recent history (a few years back, that is), Suntech is doing quite well right now — were it not for anti-dumping tariffs, the company/brand would most certainly be looking to gain a far greater market share in the US. With the recent majority-stake acquisition, though, that looks as though it may be unnecessary.
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EU-China solar dispute set to resurface as key deadline nears
Sep 7, 2015 | PV Tech
By John Parnell
The EU-China solar trade dispute looks set to reignite with every indication suggesting that EU ProSun will request a review of the impending expiry of duties on Chinese solar imports into Europe put in place in 2013.
The trade tariffs were given a two-year duration and are scheduled to expire on 7 December 2015. ProSun, the body led by manufacturer SolarWorld that registered the original complaint that led to the tariffs, must request the European Commission investigate the benefits of any extension by the end of today, 7 September.
If the EU accepts, a 15-month investigation period begins, during which a mandatory extension of the current measures would be enforced. The minimum import price (MIP) agreement, which also holds Chinese manufacturers to an annual quota, would continue under such circumstances.
A formal announcement on the expiry review request is expected later today.
The commission can choose to refuse the request, a move that would end all limitations on Chinese solar products imported to Europe once the planned expiry date in December passes.
Several wider political factors, including Chinese attempts to gain free market economy status at the WTO and this year's UN climate talks, are also at play.
ProSun is not required to prove that it is representative of the European solar manufacturing sector in order to request a review. However, a Brussels-based source told PV Tech that the commission has used this metric when justifying expiry reviews in other cases.
The MIP arrangement has come under scrutiny in recent months, with the commission ejecting several Chinese manufacturers from the undertaking for apparently flouting the rules.
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Energy poverty, the plight that a billion people need not endure
Sep 6, 2015 | Financial Times
By Nick Butler
For one person in six, worldwide energy is not a tradeable commodity but a matter of survival — and it takes the form not of electricity from the socket or petrol from the pump but wood or dung collected by hand.
The number of people living and dying in conditions of absolute poverty is falling — but only slowly, because population growth, especially in sub Saharan Africa, cancels out many of the gains being made elsewhere. According to the most recent forecast from the International Energy Agency, almost a billion people will still lack electricity, even in 2030. That number could be higher still if recent forecasts of population growth in Africa and India prove to be right.
We should be more shocked by these facts than we are. Over the past three decades, the Chinese have succeeded in lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty and subsistence — a remarkable and unprecedented achievement. We are now within sight of the time when no one in China will lack access to proper energy supplies, even if the use of primitive cooking stoves remains a problem. There is no reason why this success should not be repeated elsewhere.
Eliminating energy poverty does not have to rely on governments with Beijing’s level of centralised authority. Developing countries including Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are tackling energy poverty in rural areas, where more than half the villagers have no connection to the electricity grid. Power can come in different ways, from pico-power systems that can generate just 0.01kW (enough for lighting and simple two-way mobile links) to standalone home systems or local grids. The smaller systems are predominantly solar powered; the bigger ones can also use hydro, wind and biomass.
Power transforms lives in many ways. Households can have access to clean water, and communications systems can link the most remote villages to web-based health systems. Most important of all, accessible power can help create productive enterprises and the potential for exchange and trade.
Smart Villages , a book from the Cambridge Centre for Development Studies, spells out just how much could be done. Of course money matters, but this is not particularly about aid. The challenge is much more about organisation to give people the opportunity to use the technology that is already available. A crucial element is finding a viable financial mechanism that can help families and villages to get the equipment and to pay back the cost out of the revenue it can generate. This is a matter of spreading risk, creating revenue flows and of developing a system to collect payments in communities completely unaccustomed to financial transactions. Complex yes, but surely not impossible.
The banks could help but perhaps the energy companies could do more. The solar companies have a direct interest but in most cases do not have the capital on the scale required. For the bigger energy companies the calculation of self-interest is more complicated.
Companies are understandably wary of taking on roles that they believe are really for governments. But corporate strengths can be used for the greater good. I can think of many companies where staff would be happy to devote part of their own time, and even their own money, to a well-designed scheme that helped relieve energy poverty.
It has started to happen but the issue goes beyond charity and is really a matter of enlightened self-interest. Companies need secure environments in which to operate and wide social divisions do not make for stability. Most of the growth of the energy business, including the power sector over the next half century, will take place in the emerging markets of the world — often in places where growth and economic progress live uncomfortably side by side with persistent poverty. It cannot afford to settle for living in gated communities.
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At U.N. climate talks, growing frustration at 'snail's pace'
Sep 4, 2015 | Reuters
By ALISTER DOYLE
The "snail's pace" of progress on an agreement to combat climate change caused widening unease at U.N. negotiations on Friday, with time fast running out before a Paris summit at which a global accord is due to be reached.
The United Nations said the talks were on track for the Nov. 30-Dec. 11 summit after a week of negotiations in Bonn made progress in clarifying options about everything from cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to raising aid to developing nations.
"We all would want to see this baby born," Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said of the U.N. agreement meant to chart ways to fight global warming beyond 2020 by almost 200 nations.
"Of course we are all impatient, of course we are all frustrated," she told a news conference, referring to efforts to pin down emissions cuts to limit heatwaves, floods and rising sea levels. "We are ... on track with the Paris agreement."
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has in recent weeks criticized the negotiations as progressing at a "snail's pace".
Ahmed Djoghlaf, an Algerian who co-chairs the Bonn meetings, bristled at the description. He said Ban's office was on the 38th floor of the U.N. building in New York. From so high up "you don’t see what is going on in the basement," he said.
"We are making progress... We will be on time in Paris," he told a news conference.
There is just one more formal five-day session left, in October, before the summit. A group of protesters in Bonn, urging faster action, sang "It's the final countdown".
Senior officials said they had successfully clarified many options in the 83-page draft text, while leaving hard choices for the Paris summit.
Governments asked Djoghlaf and his American co-chair Daniel Reifsnyder to present a new streamlined draft text in early October, outlining clear choices.
"It's time for a step change. The real deal needs to start taking shape," European Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said.
"This is their shot to get it right," Alden Meyer, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said of the planned draft, adding he felt there was still enough time to line up a deal for Paris.
Overriding choices, for instance, range from a goal of phasing out fossil fuels by 2050 favored by many developing nations to no deadline at all, favored by many OPEC states.
Some environmental groups said negotiators should make the tough decisions now. "Governments have failed us in Bonn," said Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace, saying that negotiators should set a goal to phase out fossil fuels by mid-century.
France plans to invite world leaders to the opening of the Paris summit to encourage negotiations, France's climate ambassador Laurence Tubiana said. "There is no plan to have a political declaration" signed at the start, she said.
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Japan’s utilities ‘still at very first stage’ of learning to integrate renewables
Sep 4, 2015 | PV Tech
By Andy Colthorpe
Despite a vast increase in generation, difficulties in integrating renewable energy to Japan’s electricity networks shows that the country’s utilities are still “at the very first stage” of learning to do so, the director of the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation (JREF) has said.
Mika Ohbayashi, director of the advocacy group, told PV Tech on Friday that JREF welcomed the publication this week of a newspaper survey showing that solar contributed 10% of peak electricity demand in Japan during summer.
Ohbayashi said it was a positive development that the newspaper,Asahi Shimbun, conducted the survey for which it wrote to and received replies from nine out of 10 of Japan’s regional electric power utilities – which are also responsible for operating the grid in their respective regions.
One utility, Kyushu Electric Power, based on Kyushu, south of the main Japanese island of Honshu, covered as much as 24.6% of electricity demand during the lunchtime of 6 August with PV, amounting to around 3.65GW. During spring, Kyushu also covered around half of its total demand with solar.
“I think it’s really good… the newspaper is now aware that renewables can contribute to peak demand. Especially that Asahi’s article found that 10% of peak demand is covered by PV, which is a big number,” Ohbayashi said.
“At the same time, the comments from the industry like power companies such as Shikoku and Kyushu, they say they have difficulties to deal with the stability of the power generation of renewables.”
Ohbayashi said her first impressions of the news story, and of comments from power companies, showed that in several cases, the utilities lacked up-to-date technology and that the measures taken for renewable energy integration are still “not appropriate” to Japan’s drive to greatly increase deployment.
“My impression of Shikoku’s remarks that they have some difficulties for the stabilisation of the grid because of the unstable generation by PV, it just gives me the impression that they don’t have [adequate] technologies to make it stable… that’s a very old fashioned type of comment.”
“That shows that Japan’s utilities are still at the very first stage to introduce renewables because they haven’t caught up to advanced technologies.”Electricity market reform
Nonetheless, Ohbayashi said, JREF still sees a “huge potential” for renewables – if certain conditions can be met. These include a successful reform of Japan’s electricity market, a process which is now underway, with the appointment of a regulator or watchdog to oversee the first major stage of that process – enabling interconnection between the various regional grid networks and the utilities that run them.
Since the introduction of the feed-in tariff (FiT) in Japan in July 2012, Japan has become one of the biggest markets for solar energy in the world. However, there have been recent high profile challenges to the rise of renewables, including various problems cited with grid integration and rises in consumer electricity bills. Nonetheless, by the end of April this year, around 24GW of PV had been installed under the FiT, according to government statistics.
Various experts and industry figures, including Canadian Solar’s CEO Shawn Qu, have said that the reform process which is meant to separate utilities from the grid operating roles and allow for greater competition and consumer choice in the retail electricity market could also revitalise Japan’s solar sector and allow for much greater levels of deployment and integration.
The second and third stages of the reform process involve introducing full market competition, where consumers will be able to choose their electricity supplier, followed by a full “unbundling”, with final stage of deregulation set to begin in April 2020.
Additionally, Ohbayashi said, studies of better weather forecasting and how to use forecasting to help predict the output of renewables are starting to be integrated into the process, which will take “about three years”, the JREF director predicted. It could also be extremely expensive, according to Ohbayashi.
Ohbayashi expressed some frustration that the market reform could take several years to implement in full, and said that Japan was lagging behind other regions of the world, such as Northern Europe and in particular Germany in its efforts to implement new technologies at grid level and market reform to allow for more renewables.
However, she said, the recent Asahi Shimbun survey showed the great promise of clean energy.
“They [utilities] do not use…regional interconnection transmission trade for controlling [the dispatch of] those renewables, but still renewables can provide 50% of electricity in [some] areas. It shows the big potential of renewables to provide a huge amount of electricity for the whole of Japan, if the regional interconnection will be advanced or the new technologies such as weather forecasting and market integration will be introduced,” Ohabayashi said.
“So I think there still could be a very big potential and a hope for renewables.”
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