<<patiently>> is extremely easy when there is absence of intention, at least as enunciated up to this point, and what enunciations were done w/r to Russia, in the main, originates from team America which seems to like keeping busy, productive or otherwise, appearing at times to be simply and just an action to mill time.
and w/r to busy, so much too do, productively, per imperatives give rise to solutions, some positive news, but per 'china china china' meme, perhaps the deep-state shall, in addition to the space force, the south china sea strutting around, tee-up the solar patrol, which, by the way, is difficult to do unless allowing trade deficit w/ team china to incline upward, from the lower left to the upper right, that which we can term alt-decline :0)
<<“The IEEFA has no doubt that China’s commitment to dominate the world in zero-emissions technologies and industries of the future is absolute.”>> in case the casual peruser in the cafe misses the trajectory per china 2025, silk this and belt that, and infrastructure infrastructure infrastructure
the days and nights of high speed rail running on grid-parity and soon god-parity essentially free electricity can do much for the economy economy economy and export export export, and if packaged w/ quantum-encryption enabled Huawei 5G tele system, oh whoa wee whiz bang gee (may have gotten the word order wrong).
ft.com
Chinese solar industry starts to hit grid parity
Breakthrough means photovoltaic sector can compete against coal without subsidies
April 5, 2019
Solar power will achieve grid parity with coal in 11 of China’s 31 provincial-level administrative units this year, according to Citigroup, potentially allowing the sector to continue its rapid expansion in spite of the slashing of government subsidies.
Beijing temporarily scrapped subsidies for most of China’s solar projects in June last year in a move aimed at curbing runaway growth in the photovoltaic industry, which had boomed under generous subsidies. The industry’s rapid expansion led to a $15bn-plus deficit in a fund set up to pay for higher tariffs for renewable energy.
The end of subsidies caused fears of a sudden slowdown in the roll-out of photovoltaic projects in the world’s largest polluter. China accounted for 29 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions last year, according to the International Energy Agency, with its emissions having risen 2.5 per cent year-on-year.
However, the earlier-than-expected transition to grid parity — allowing solar power to compete with coal-fired plants with no need of any subsidy — suggests the worries may be overdone.
A recent report from Unearthed, Greenpeace UK’s journalism project, noted: “There were fears that [solar PV] installation volumes would crash after [the] drastic cut to tariffs last summer, but they stayed strong, showing that solar is increasingly cost competitive against coal in China.”
It added: “Early this year, China announced the first unsubsidised wind and solar projects, marking a potential inflection point for the industry.”
In December, a 500MW solar PV plant in Golmud, a city in Qinghai province on the Tibetan Plateau, was connected to the grid selling power for Rmb0.316 per kWh, below the Rmb0.325 benchmark price for electricity generated from coal-fired plants, according to the official Xinhua news agency, which said the tariff was “unprecedented nationwide for solar power”.
China’s National Development and Reform Commission said in January, “Some regions with good natural resources and firm demand have already achieved subsidy-free, or grid price parity, conditions.”
François Perrin, a Hong Kong-based portfolio manager at investment house East Capital, said, “The development of the photovoltaic industry over the last 20 years has been driven all the way by generous subsidies — 2019 will effectively be remembered as the year China reached grid parity in the PV industry.”
The temporary freezing of the subsidy regime may, in itself, be a major factor behind some Chinese provinces potentially reaching grid parity this year, four years ahead of an official target of 2023.
Prices for polysilicon, wafers and solar cells have been in long-term decline, but have fallen more sharply still since the end of May 2018 as the elimination of subsidies led to expectations of weaker global demand, given China’s outsized role in the solar industry, even as production continued to rise rapidly.
Since May 31, prices for all three components have fallen by between 35 per cent and 41 per cent, according to figures from Citi and PVinsights, a data provider, as the chart illustrates.
“Solar panels are now reaching price levels enabling photovoltaic power plants to be competitive versus conventional coal power plants in more than 10 provinces in China,” said Mr Perrin.
“When I started to run money in China in 2009 the cost of the solar panel was around $4/W. Now the cost has fallen to 25c and at the same time the efficiency of the panel has been increasing.”
Eleven Chinese provinces — Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu and Chongqing on the central plateau; Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin and Shandong on the east coast; Jilin and Heilongjiang in the north-east; and the island of Hainan in the South China Sea — will reach grid parity with coal this year, according to Citi. Another five are judged as being within 5 per cent of doing so, as the map indicates.
Scott Chui, China solar analyst at Citi, forecast that 2.5GW of solar PV capacity will be installed at grid parity this year, out of an estimated total of 42GW, after the subsidy freeze was relaxed in January.
Mr Chui believed a further three provinces — Liaoning in the north-east, central Shaanxi and Guangdong in the south — would reach grid parity by the end of next year.
Mr Perrin said provinces on the Tibetan plateau were particularly suited to solar power because of their high altitude, which meant there was less pollution to block out sunlight, improving efficiency. Being relatively sparsely populated also means land is both cheaper and more readily available in large parcels, allowing economies of scale.
In contrast, some of the most polluted urban areas are furthest away from grid parity, while the comparison is also influenced by coal prices varying from province to province.
However, Tim Buckley, director of energy finance studies at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a think-tank, argued that the lack of widespread reverse auctions for new power generation suggested unsubsidised solar was not yet competitive with coal, although this tipping point was not far off.
“They will be at grid parity within two years. That is how fast the market is changing and how fast prices are coming down,” he said.
Amid falling component prices, Mr Buckley saw new installation reaching 45GW across China this year, only a little below last year’s 50GW, despite the reinstated feed-in tariff rate being Rmb0.45/kWh, 30 per cent less than a year ago.
“China is driving the cost of solar down and is likely to achieve grid parity by the end of 2020/21, ahead of the official target of 2023,” he said. “And it won’t stop there: wind is set to reach grid parity in China in 2020.
“The IEEFA has no doubt that China’s commitment to dominate the world in zero-emissions technologies and industries of the future is absolute.”
Mr Perrin said “the jury was out” on whether tumbling costs will lead to an acceleration in the already rapid rate of solar roll-out in China, a development for which there would appear to be ample scope.
Although power generation from solar PV rose 50 per cent last year in China, and wind power generation by 20 per cent (taking their combined share to 8 per cent) these sharp increases still only covered 30 per cent of the country’s incremental power demand, according to Unearthed.
Mr Perrin was optimistic for the medium term, however. “Coal still represents close to 60 per cent of the energy mix. We see coal going down to 30 per cent by 2030,” he said. “They will have to revise their targets, but they haven’t done so yet.”
He was also upbeat that tumbling equipment prices and rising efficiency would spur growth in India, the world’s other population giant.
“The one that should come next is India. Solar remains a tiny portion of the market but up to 2022 I would expect India to offer much better growth,” Mr Perrin said.
While cheap coal means solar power is not at yet grid parity in India, he believed cheaper financing options for solar infrastructure could help narrow the gap.
Mr Buckley agreed, noting that funding costs had already fallen from 12-16 per cent in India to 9 per cent and “there is plenty of scope for that to come down further”.
In particular, with global pension money moving into the industry, solar plants are regarded less as “equity” investments and more as “infrastructure”, an asset class where investors are typically targeting annual returns of 7-8 per cent, rather than 10 per cent or so for equities.
“India is looking to quadruple the installation rate over the next two years and they will be doing it at less than half the cost,” Mr Buckley said. |
