Posted on 06/19/2023 6:05:01 AM PDT by FarCenter
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“To meet Europe’s renewable energy objectives — and avoid replacing a dependency on Russian fossil fuels with new dependencies — we are launching an industrial alliance for solar energy. With the alliance’s support, the EU could reach 30 Gigawatt of annual solar energy manufacturing capacity by 2025 across the full PV value chain. The alliance will foster an innovative and value-creating industry in Europe, which leads to job creation here. Europe’s solar industry already created more than 357,000 jobs. We have the potential to double these figures by the end of the decade.”
30GW would be 3.6 times the 8.3GW estimate of European PC module capacity in 2021 issued by Intersolar. More recent data is hard to come by – McKinsey & Company gave a range of 6GW to 8GW in a report issued at the end of 2022, which seems oddly low,
But if Europe’s capacity is currently 10GW, then that would be just 15% of the 68.6GW installation demand forecast for Europe by market researcher TrendForce in February. Most of the rest comes from China.
The EU wants to raise its self-sufficiency in PV module production to 40% by 2030. That might sound like a modest target, but the EU also wants to increase Europe’s total installed solar power generating capacity from a bit more than 200GW in 2022 to 320GW by 2025 and nearly 600GW by 2030.
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China is far and away the largest producer and user of solar power, producing close to 80% of the world’s solar silicon, 95% of its solar ingots and wafers, 75% of its solar cells and 70% of its solar modules, according to McKinsey & Company.
More than half of Chinese-made PV modules were exported in 2022, according to PVTIME, and the largest market for those modules was Europe.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), China accounted for 37% of total worldwide installed PV solar energy capacity in 2022, followed by the EU at 19%, the US at 11%, Japan at 7.5% and Germany and India at about 6% each.
Source: IRENA data; Asia Times chart Moreover, China is likely to install more than twice as much PV capacity in 2023 as Europe and 3.7 times as much as the US, according to data from TrendForce.
Source: TrendForce data; Asia Times chart Seven out of the top 10 suppliers of PV modules are Chinese. One is headquartered in Canada but makes most of its products in China, one is American and one is South Korean.
Lists compiled by other market research outfits are slightly different, but all of them show a preponderance of Chinese companies and no European companies except for Q-Cells of Germany, which was rescued from bankruptcy and acquired by South Korea’s Hanwha Group in 2012.
China’s enormous production capacity, supported by a complete supply chain of materials, equipment, production and assembly, gives it unmatched economies of scale and a cost advantage it is unlikely to lose even if Europe reaches its energy sovereignty goals.
Cutting down the trees you have left will be great
People in Hell want ice water.
Europe will be treeless just like Haiti.
Pipe dreams, unless Europe seriously wants to pay twice as much for solar power, which is already 5 times as much as conventional power, even when sourced using Chinese components.
Bottom line, Europe simply WILL NOT have the money and although these dreaming articles are out there, both the UK and Germany (and probably other countries) have gone back to coal in real life.
The people in Europe are just trading one set of commies for another.
Europe is too far north to even subsist on solar panels.
What about southern Spain? Not that far from Africa. Hot, dry, sunny, not too densely populated, either.
Aren’t the Spanish Hispanics rather than Europeans?
One would think that a cloudy northern climate with long winter nights is not the place you’d want to go all in on solar.
What you said makes NO sense! Spaniards like the Portuguese to their west and French to their east are white Europeans. There is no “Hispanic” race. The US census even says that “people of Hispanic origin can be of ANY race.” Most Mexican Americans (largest “Hispanic” group in US) are mestizo, ie mixed Amerindian and European.
I was shocked to see that Capetown South Africa is the same distance from the equator as Atlanta. Atlanta is on the same latitude as the inlet into the Mediterranean.
Is it really? When I bought 10kW of solar panels 2 years ago from Mission Solar made in Texas (probably with parts from China, as you pointed out), I paid only about 10% more for them compared to imports.
Of course, that was before the Inflation Raising Act changed the solar tax credit. Perhaps, among other things, the credit gives more for American made panels, which would artificially inflate the prices of American made solar panels (like tax credits in any industry artificially inflate prices). Even people who believe the gubment should interfere people's choices should hate tax credits as much as conservatives do.
Yep, as the Neocons are now learning the hard way, it’s very difficult to get supply lines established these days without significant Chinese and/or Russian content, even if it’s at the piece-part or raw material level. The Neocons, almost certainly, figured they could empty our arsenals in Ukraine and have them refilled in a year. Now they learn it’s more like 5 to 10 years.
So, similar to cars, I doubt there are any “American” companies that produce solar panels - it’s more like they just assemble the panels and perhaps source some stuff domestically (although where do those domestic suppliers get their raw materials?).
Unwinding our HUGE DEPENDENCE on enemies like China and imagined enemies like Russia (especially for nuclear reactor fuel) will take a HUGE amount of time and is probably not even doable, considering that it means going back to mining and factory operations big time - something we’ve ‘outsourced’ in order to ‘clean up the planet’ (LOL).
Solar is far from perfect. It wouldn't work well for the grid for a number of reasons. And even if you live in the same climate I do there are a host of other factors that have to work in your favor to get the kind of throughput I get: i.e. do other energy improvements on your home, have an unshaded area to put the panels pointing south, if that's on your roof then you need a metal roof to reduce the odds of doing roof work so you don't have to move your 25-year warranty panels, not good for a young couple who both work and consume most power in the evening when they get home (which means have to spend more on battery storage), can get a low fixed interest loan like I did to pay in place of sky high energy costs, if getting an EV then the driving habits have to be a lot for gas expense to be high enough to warrant the EV car payment, etc.
But if all of those factors are in someone's favor (which they are for my wife and me), then I can see lots of people in the southern portion of the U.S. and similar latitude in Europe and Asia (and inverse latitude in Africa and South America) having most of their personal power consumption supplied by decentralized solar. It's a sweet feeling when only 20% of your energy consumption is dependent on energy sources that the Dims are intent on making less reliable yet cost more. That's the key: solar and other alternative energy sources shouldn't be looked at for generating grid power (a stupid idea) nor for saving the world (equally dumb). Solar's best use is in making each family more self-sufficient (and even then only for the families for which all the parameters work in their favor). That's because each family can customize it and configure it for their particular needs and wants. No bureaucrat, even if noble, can put the time and effort into doing that for each family like a man can do for his own family. That's why our solar works so well for us.
Take cobalt for example. Instead of it being made with slave labor in Africa we could mine it from large deposits in Minnesota. Looked at from that angle, "rare-earths" are less rare. There's probably enough cobalt to supply America's needs as long as the free market drives both supply (mining) and demand (buying EV's and solar equipment). But if the Dims keep monkeying with demand (forcing people to switch to EV's) or supply (restricting mining), there's not enough.
IMHO the solar and EV arguments are solved like all other political arguments: get the government out of the way and let the free market decide. We should let companies drill baby drill for oil and natural gas and also mine baby mine for coal and lithium and cobalt. And we should let people drive whatever they want without penalties or subsidies. Then everybody gets plenty of what they want cheaply with less imports --- except of course for the loyal Dim voters who think it's their business to tell the rest of us how to live our lives.
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