Planned(?) expansion of UK PV capacity.

[Ken]

If Russia can control Germany with a stranglehold on gas there must be some scope for supporting silicon chip making elsewhere befre China does the same. I thought Australia smelted silicon and it would seem a good place to diversify into wafer production.

How very true but until recently the Aus gov was very business as usual with no vision of where it could be in the future with its vast resources and cheap RE energy. Mind you Australians already have a good lifestyle and dont feel the urge to do more. I would advice young people to emigrate to Aus if they can.

[spread-tee]

Can we really not justify setting up a panel-manufacturing plant? Apparent initial price shouldn't be the deciding factor, especially as China has been
undermining everyone else's production costings by using dirty penalty-free coal for decades.

Crap or almost non existent long term industrial strategy, slavish adherence to neoliberal market knows all ideology and successive GOVT policy that follows the myth of balanced PSBR all leads to the exporting of our manufacturing capacity Business owners love it because their margin rises but they don't have to pay the unemployment cheques, GOVT love it because they can claim to be reducing our CO2 emissions (by exporting them) right wing media love it because they hate nearly everyone (except the 1%) Overseas manufacturers love it and spend a few quid wining and dining GOVT trade ministers and business men.

What's the downside for those who "matter"?

Desp0

[Moxi]

https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/blog ... hs_of_2022

https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/blog ... ing_growth
"Indeed, we have commented regularly over the past couple of years on the growth in commercial rooftop installations and the pipeline of utility-scale ground-mounted projects (now over 40GW)."

and following on in that same article

But, ultimately, the UK does not manufacture products, and is at the whim of Asian supply, raw material price volatility and shipping costs. No slight here: China makes more than 90% of everything these days, and in some cases (for key parts of the value chain, including wafers used in cells) virtually 100%.

So, the UK is now in a fight globally to secure modules made in China (or by Chinese owned facilities in Southeast Asia).

It should be a nice problem for the industry: stratospheric demand in the absence of government hand-outs. But for now, it is a bun fight to secure product globally, and the entities suffering most are those seeking to fulfil gigawatt-plus portfolio build-outs in the near to mid-term.

There are just too many buyers! And over the next few years, many global utilities and corporates will fail to meet their declared goals (as part of net zero aspirations or corporate targets), simply by not getting enough modules.

As such, UK solar is contributing to the huge uptick in global PV demand, but is also subject to the frailties of being just another country controlled by external forces beyond its control.

... To say it is a sellers-market today is a gross understatement.

Can we really not justify setting up a panel-manufacturing plant? Apparent initial price shouldn't be the deciding factor, especially as China has been
undermining everyone else's production costings by using dirty penalty-free coal for decades.

As noted on another thread before the uk does produce its own silicon wafers and we do have a thriving ( and expanding) pv panel industry that operates in the global market.

The missing link seems to be a government that doesn’t legislate to allow these sorts of facilities to benefit from cheap wind derived energy to build and sell their products at a more competitive rate globally. Maybe if the uk power market was nationalised again we would have more foresight and planning and less political expediency?

Moxi

[Swwils]

Interesting catch.

PV production is interesting as more capacity generally also produces more demand.

As soon as PV his a certain price equilibrium with "simple but electricity demanding" synthetic processes you'll also see a massive boost in demand.

It might may well make alot of sense to use excess PV energy and turn it into hydrocarbon fuels. This process is not efficient really but if PV is in excess and cheaply available then it's very attractive for the UK and EU, especially if someone is able to scale 'PV to stored LNG" in meaningful quantities.

I think the breakpoint for this is about 17 USD per MWh per barrell of oil.

[openspaceman]

I wonder what the possibilities are because I would have thought the trade of between conversion efficiency and capital cost of moving PV generated electricity from north Africa by HVDC would make synthesis of a liquid fuel (I like the idea of dimethyl ether from PV and biomass) would favour the synthesis and bulk shipping.