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sfce 12/7
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European Commission could drop trade duties on Chinese cells
Dec 7, 2015 | PV - Tech
By John Parnell
The European Commission confirmed on Friday that it would investigate the possibility of extending trade duties on Chinese solar products but raised question marks over ongoing tariffs on Chinese PV cell imports. -
Chinese Cities Boost Toyota's Hunt for Hybrid Car Buyers
Dec 7, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ma Jie
China's former leader Deng Xiaoping famously quipped that it doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice. When it comes to environmentally friendly cars that might help clear up the nation's polluted skies, China has ignored Deng's advice—to the detriment of Toyota Motor Corp.’s lineup of hybrid cars. That may soon change. -
Clean-Energy Patents Headed for Record
Dec 7, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tom Randall
Twenty of the world's biggest economies and 28 of its top private investors have committed unprecedented amounts of money to basic research and development for new clean-energy technologies—an industry already exploding with new ideas. -
Exclusive: Solar comes of age with launch of the Global Solar Council
Dec 4, 2015 | PV - Tech
By Ben Willis
Despite solar’s stellar growth in recent years, one accusation sometimes levelled at the global industry is that it has not been particularly effective at speaking with one voice and getting its message out to the wider world. -
COP21 Day 5: Bloomberg to lead financial climate-risk task force
Dec 7, 2015 | Recharge
By Andrew Lee
Businessman and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is to lead a new task force drawing up guidelines for companies to offer more transparency over their exposure to climate-related risks, it emerged at COP21 on another day when finance-related issues loomed large at the Paris summit.
Industry News
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European Commission could drop trade duties on Chinese cells
Dec 7, 2015 | PV - Tech
By John Parnell
The European Commission confirmed on Friday that it would investigate the possibility ofextending trade duties on Chinese solar products but raised question marks over ongoing tariffs on Chinese PV cell imports.
EU ProSun had requested an expiry review ahead of the existing duties' conclusion on 7 December. Brussels will now spend up to 15 months exploring whether the removal of duties would result in continued dumping and harm to the European solar manufacturing industry.
But the Commission has also, under its own steam, launched an interim review into whether cells should be removed from the scope of products covered by the measures.
“The partial interim review is limited to the examination of whether or not it is in the Union interest to maintain measures currently in force on cells of the type used in crystalline silicon photovoltaic modules or panels,” a document filed alongside the expiry review notice read.
“Following a restructuring and consolidation of the Union industry in recent years, a significant number of cell producers have closed production. The bulk of the remaining cell production capacities in the Union appear to be largely destined for captive use for the production of modules or panels,” it continued.
“Consequently, the Union industry's cell sales to unrelated users are very limited in quantity, while non-integrated module producers depend on the availability of alternative supply sources, amongst others, the People's Republic of China, but also Taiwan and Malaysia.”
Finlay Colville, head of Solar Intelligence said the Commission may have picked the wrong target.
“With the expansions underway in Southeast Asia - in particular Malaysia and Thailand - by the main Silicon Module Super League big-six, there may be increased scope to supply the European market. However, this will depend on the balance of cells to modules. Ultimately though, it is still the MIP level that needs to be re-examined, not the channels of supply,” said Colville.
“Mainland Europe is no longer the global powerhouse in solar, and the UK's time as leading European market may also be coming to an end in 2017. Independent of the cell location, European demand needs a massive push in a post-incentives climate, and having an artificial pricing level well above global averages, is not helping in any way,” he added.
In September, PV Tech learned that some European module manufacturers were struggling to source affordable EU-made cells, with Solarworld the last major producer. The majority of its cells go into its own modules. Asked at the time whether the company now had a monopoly on cells in Europe, Solarworld vice president Milan Nitzschke, also president of EU ProSun, denied this was the case.
“SolarWorld is the last fully integrated manufacturer left in Europe and one of the few module manufacturers in Europe which produces their own cells,” said Nitzschke.
“It's a sad story that Chinese dumping forced so many other cell manufacturers to go bankrupt, close production or leave the country.” he added, listing Sovello, Schott, Hanwha Q CELLS, Conergy and Photovoltek among those no longer producing in Europe. “The same happened to wafers which have not even made it into the anti-dumping regulations.”
The removal of duties on Chinese cells would be a boost for European module manufacturers by increasing the pool of suppliers that they could source from.
This could potentially lower their costs. Solarworld, which is enjoying increasing demand from the US, uses most of its own cells. In Q1-Q3 this year it has sold 29MW of cells and wafers. It claims most of its production facilities are at full utilisation and has more than 1GW of cell capacity in Europe.
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Chinese Cities Boost Toyota's Hunt for Hybrid Car Buyers
Dec 7, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ma Jie
China's former leader Deng Xiaoping famously quipped that it doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice. When it comes to environmentally friendly cars that might help clear up the nation's polluted skies, China has ignored Deng's advice—to the detriment of Toyota Motor Corp.’s lineup of hybrid cars. That may soon change.
Tianjin and Guangzhou, home to Toyota's local joint ventures, are becoming the first cities to let buyers of new Levin and Corolla hybrids enter lotteries usually restricted to plug-in cars, virtually guaranteeing access to coveted new license plates. The cities are rewarding Toyota for sharing some hybrid technology and know-how with local partners.
More Chinese cities are adopting the plate restrictions to control the number of autos on their roads and promote greener cars. These lotteries are routinely undersubscribed. Getting a plate for a gas engine-powered car is far more difficult. In Beijing, for example, a consumer has a 0.5 percent chance of winning a plate in lotteries held every two months.
“Toyota has done its part to localize production and lower costs,” said Zhang Yi, a Tokyo-based auto industry consultant at Nomura Research Institute. “The government support is the last step they need to reverse hybrid's fate in China.”
Under the new arrangement in Tianjin and Guangzhou, Toyota's newest China models will get a marketing edge as the Japanese carmaker plays catch-up with Volkswagen AG and General Motors Co. in the world's largest auto market. Toyota agreed to localize development and production of hybrid car components after almost two decades of keeping the work contained to Japan.
State Support
China has doled out subsidies to electric-car buyers and puts less-stringent purchase restrictions on plug-in autos in urban centers as part of a government strategy to reduce tailpipe emissions and dependence on imported oil. Conventional hybrids, which run on a combination of a gasoline engine and a battery, have been excluded in the government's new-energy vehicle programs until now.
The lack of state support has hampered Toyota's bet that hybrids could be a more realistic solution to reducing emissions, since plug-in cars sold by companies including BYD Co. and Chery Automobile Co. are dependent on still-nascent charging infrastructure. While Toyota has sold more than 8 million hybrids globally, it delivered only about 1,000 Prius and 5,700 Camry hybrids last year in China.
With Tianjin and Guangzhou getting behind the Corolla and Levin hybrids, Toyota received orders for 8,000 units in the three weeks after their introduction in late October. That level of hybrid demand is unprecedented for the carmaker, which first introduced the gasoline-electric Prius to the China market in 2005.
‘Hybrid Era’
“Toyota has taken 10 years to sharpen a sword,” Hiroji Onishi, Toyota's chief executive officer for the China region, said last month at the Guangzhou Motor Show. “This year marks the start of a hybrid era in China.”
Beijing made its lotteries for gasoline cars more stringent from last year as part of efforts to contain tailpipe emissions. Despite these efforts, a round of air pollution blanketed the city's sky as President Xi Jinping visited Paris for the United Nations-led talks on a deal to fight climate change.
Guangzhou's hybrid support was a deciding factor for Jason Chen, a 35-year-old city resident, who has placed an order for a 150,000 yuan ($23,400) Levin hybrid. “I like the car's fuel efficiency and exterior design, but what really convinced me is the dealer said I can get a free number plate,” he said by phone.
Toyota is negotiating for more cities to offer hybrids support similar to what the government offers for new-energy vehicles, said Jiang Jun, president of FAW Toyota Motor Sales Co.
The FAW Toyota joint venture plans to increase production of the Corolla hybrid next year by as much as 15 percent to 45,000 units, said Zhang Sijun, a general manager of the marketing planning division. This would boost both FAW and local Chinese battery supplier Hunan Corun New Energy Co.
“It's been proven that years of lobbying the central government won't work,” said Zhang, of Nomura Research. “Cracking open local cities one by one should be a better strategy.”
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Clean-Energy Patents Headed for Record
Dec 7, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tom Randall
Twenty of the world's biggest economies and 28 of its top private investors have committed unprecedented amounts of money to basic research and development for new clean-energy technologies—an industry already exploding with new ideas.
With patents for clean energy soaring as solar and wind power take off and competition intensifies, 20 countries responsible for 80 percent of the world's energy research and development agreed to double their annual spending in a project dubbed “Mission Innovation.” The funds were announced Nov. 30 at world climate talks in Paris.
The shift to cleaner energy is already under way, as wind, solar and battery power start competing with fossil fuels on cost. It's now a trillion-dollar race for the best ideas.
Since 2002, the number of annual U.S. patents for clean energy has increased fivefold and—this year— is on track to break another record after eight consecutive increases, according to the Clean Energy Patent Growth Index. Most patents in 2015 have been for solar technologies—586 granted in the first half of the year alone—followed by fuel cells, electric vehicles and wind power.
But while patents are a sign of interest and innovation, research breakthroughs often run up against a wall of costs and institutional inertia in getting them to market. That is where the new funds come in.
The countries' pledges to double R&D funding could amount to roughly $10 billion in new annual funding by 2020, though that estimate is rough considering that doubling is based on 2015 levels of R&D, which many countries haven't yet disclosed. However, the U.S. alone accounts for approximately $5 billion in 2015 spending.
Separately, Bill Gates announced a new pool of money from big private-sector investors, including other billionaires and deep-pocketed institutions such as the University of California. The group, called the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, hasn't specified a funding goal, though it will reportedly start with several billion dollars (230 DEN A-2, 12/1/15).
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Exclusive: Solar comes of age with launch of the Global Solar Council
Dec 4, 2015 | PV - Tech
By Ben Willis
Despite solar’s stellar growth in recent years, one accusation sometimes levelled at the global industry is that it has not been particularly effective at speaking with one voice and getting its message out to the wider world. That may not have been an impediment so far, but with solar seen as an increasingly vital part of the future energy mix, now more than ever there is a clear need for the industry to unite under a common purpose.
This coming weekend, on the fringes of the crunch COP21 climate talks in Paris, the solar industry will take a major step forwards in its evolution with the launch of the Global Solar Council.
The formation of the council marks the culmination of a process instigated last year with the aim of inspiring greater collaboration in a sometimes fragmented industry. The body will bring together 25 national and regional solar associations from around the world and boast some heavy-hitters from the industry on its board, including Trina Solar’s CEO Jifan Gao, GCL Poly chairman Zhu Gongshan and Rhone Resch, CEO of the US Solar Energy Industry Association.
“The council is a consequence of a maturing industry,” said Bruce Douglas, chief operating officer at SolarPower Europe and the inaugural chairman of the council, speaking to PV Tech ahead of Sunday's official launch. “It’s maturing in terms of technology, business models and practices, and the companies involved in it. It’s also a consequence of the globalisation of solar – as it's shifted from Europe and the US, and moved strongly into the Asian markets, we see a need for this coordination at a global level and communication of the benefits of solar – what we're delivering now and what we can deliver in the future.”
The model for the council is the comparable body that Douglas helped set up and run for the wind industry – the Global Wind Energy Council. “The main thing the wind council did was coordinate information at a global level,” he said. “What we found is national associations were doing similar work at a similar time. The council enabled us to pool our resources and remove duplication – it was an information exchange.”
Another success of GWEC that Douglas hopes to replicate with the council is its work in accelerating the development of emerging markets. “It was quite successful in Mexico, Chile and Brazil for example,” Douglas said. “There, what we did was take the best of developed markets in terms of regulation, permitting, planning and financing, a package of ideas that had worked elsewhere, and introduced them government and industry, and said if they roll it out like that then it can accelerate and facilitate the faster development of wind.
“And that's exactly what we'd like to do in solar – we'd like to go to those markets where we see potential and bring guidelines and best practices to bear on what could be good opportunities.”
Aside from cooperation, the two other main priorities of the council will be education and training, said John Smirnow, the new body’s secretary-general and former vice-president of SEIA. On education, he said the organisation would direct its efforts towards seeking to influence decision makers rather than the general public.
“We're a lobbying organisation, so it won't be the wider public,” said Smirnow. “It’s clear we need a single, formal voice at international level to interact with the various institutions – the UN, IEA [International Energy Agency], World Bank and so on. We'll be focusing on decision makers, to educate in the broadest possible sense about the opportunities that solar represents in terms of the lower cost of electricity, the scalability of it and also the CO2 implications that brings.”
On training, beyond the best practice exchange highlighted by Douglas, Smirnow said the council would work to build capacity within its member bodies, providing training around its three priority themes of reducing costs, scaling technology and ensuring quality. Although it currently only has 25 members, it has another 120 bodies worldwide on its list of prospective members, and the council’s aim will be to provide any that join up with a variety of training materials in the form of workshops, reports, guidelines and events.Fostering unity
An obvious hurdle for the council will be to unite a global industry that has of late been characterised more by its differences than its sense of common purpose. One need think only of the increasingly fractious trade disputes that have blown up in the past few years in the US and Europe, to name but two, to realise that this will be no mean feat.
On this question, the response is optimistic but guarded, suggesting this is one area that will require further work as the new council beds in. “The board hasn’t set the agenda yet but I expect that we’ll initially focus on areas where it’s relatively easy to find consensus, for example, expanding markets, and avoid more sensitive topics such as the ongoing trade conflict,” said Smirnow. “I could see us getting involved in more neutral trade issues, such as expressing support for the WTO Environmental Goods Agreement.”
But the recent launch of other international solar bodies suggests the industry is genuinely moving into a more collaborative era. Aside from the council, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi has led the formation of the International Solar Alliance, which is aiming to bring solar to the top of the energy policy agenda around the world. Meanwhile the private sector-led Terrawatt initiative, launched this week at COP21, is seeking to secure US$1 trillion of investment to build a terawatt of solar by 2030. Douglas said together with the council, the solar industry now had worldwide representation in the key spheres of government, finance and industry.
And of course, this is all against the backdrop of COP21 itself. Although the outcome of the negotiations could still go either way, optimism is still high and there is a sense that even a fairly mediocre deal could be a huge boost towards generating the momentum needed to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon world. In such a context, solar could well find itself centre stage in helping the world make this shift.
“It's not a coincidence we're launching in the middle of COP,” said Smirnow. “This is a turning point we're at right now, and COP21 gives us the opportunity to really lay down a marker through a legally binding and strong agreement. Solar represents what we believe to be the largest opportunity for CO2 reductions going forward. BNEF has forecasted that up to 5TW of solar can be installed by 2040. And if we can do that then that'll be the largest electricity generating source in the world and significantly help towards reducing CO2 towards the targets we're trying to get to.”
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COP21 Day 5: Bloomberg to lead financial climate-risk task force
Dec 7, 2015 | Recharge
By Andrew Lee
Businessman and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is to lead a new task force drawing up guidelines for companies to offer more transparency over their exposure to climate-related risks, it emerged at COP21 on another day when finance-related issues loomed large at the Paris summit.
Bloomberg’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) will develop “voluntary, consistent climate-related financial risk disclosures for use by companies in providing information to lenders, insurers, investors and other stakeholders”.
The initiative is the brainchild of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an international body working on financial regulation that is chaired by Bank of England governor Mark Carney.
Speaking at COP21 Carney said: “Access to high quality financial information will allow market participants and policymakers to understand and better manage those risks, which are likely to grow with time. Michael’s experience working on climate change issues, his unparalleled track record of execution in a broad range of fields and his lifelong commitment to open and transparent financial markets make him the ideal leader for the Task Force.”
Bloomberg added: “It’s critical that industries and investors understand the risks posed by climate change, but currently there is too little transparency about those risks.”
The TCFD announcement came after a big focus on fossil energy divestment and riskover the last few days in Paris.
In one week’s time COP21 is due to draw to a close with – it is hoped – an ambitious global agreement on climate action.
Behind the scenes the negotiating machine grinds on, producing draft texts designed to push towards that goal.
Day five alone saw two versions pop out of the works, totalling 84 pages between them.
Seasoned UN climate observers said this was the way things proceed at the leviathan events, but noted with some unease the square brackets, denoting 'still to be agreed', that litter the drafts.
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