Analysis from
Bloomberg New
Energy Finance predicts that 36.7 GW in new solar PV
capacity will be added worldwide in 2013, compared with 35.5 GW
in new wind installations (33.8 GW onshore and 1.7 GW offshore).
Both wind and solar PV broke records last year, with onshore and
offshore wind adding 46.6 GW and solar PV adding 30.5 GW. But
2013’s slowdown in the two largest wind markets, China and the
U.S., is opening the way for the rapidly growing PV market to
overtake wind, BNEF said.
Justin Wu, BNEF’s head of wind analysis, said, "We forecast that
wind installations will shrink by nearly 25 percent in 2013, to
their lowest level since 2008, reflecting slowdowns in the U.S.
and China caused by policy uncertainty.”
In the U.S., the repeated last-minute extension of the
Production Tax Credit has created what analysts have called a
perpetual boom-and-bust cycle. This year’s uncertainty led to a
drop in investment, causing significant layoffs and facility
closures across the wind supply chain.
In China, where the industry has suffered from curtailment due
to insufficient infrastructure and tightened standards for wind
turbines have slowed development, the sector has been expecting
further policy announcements after the government raised this
year's new-capacity target to 18 GW in January.
In particular, developers say China’s feed-in tariff (FiT) for
offshore wind is too low given the higher costs of offshore
development, leading to predictions that the nation will fail to
meet its offshore goal of 5 GW by 2015. The government has said
it will re-think the FiT, but has offered no timetable.
Globally, demand for wind turbines
is predicted to shrink by 5 percent this year, for the first
time since 2004.
But wind is still far from dire straits, BNEF reassured.
“Falling technology costs, new markets and the growth of the
offshore industry will ensure wind remains a leading renewable
energy technology,” Wu said.
In the solar sector, "the dramatic cost reductions in PV,
combined with new incentive regimes in Japan and China, are
making possible further, strong growth in volumes," said Jenny
Chase, BNEF’s head of solar analysis.
In Japan, the fourth country to reach the 10 GW mark in
cumulative solar capacity, the attractive FiT has led to rapid
growth over the past year, with demand surging in the commercial
and utility segments. China, which will be the largest solar
market this year according to BNEF, has raised its renewable
energy surcharge and revamped its subsidy regime, expanding
performance-based incentives for distributed solar power in a
bid to grow the domestic market after solar trade spats with
Europe and the U.S. The nation aims to more than quadruple
its solar power generating capacity to 35 GW by 2015.
Growth in Asia will offset PV’s decline in traditional
leading regions. "Europe is a declining market,” Chase said,
“because many countries there are rapidly moving away from
incentives, but it will continue to see new PV capacity added."
While the immediate future looks brighter for solar than wind,
BNEF predicted that, despite 2013’s rankings upset, the maturing
onshore wind and solar PV sectors will contribute almost equally
to the world’s new electricity capacity additions between now
and 2030. On- and offshore wind will grow from 5 percent of
total installed power generation capacity in 2012 to 17 percent
in 2030, while solar PV will increase from a lower base of 2
percent in 2012 to 16 percent by 2030, BNEF said.
The analysis also predicted that technology suppliers in both
wind and solar may see a move back to profit as soon as this
year, after a prolonged period of oversupply and consolidation.
Michael Liebreich, BNEF’s chief executive, commented: “Cost
cuts and a refocusing on profitable markets and business
segments have bolstered the financial performance of wind
turbine makers and the surviving solar manufacturers. Stock
market investors have been noticing this change, and clean
energy shares have rebounded by 66 percent since their lows of
July 2012."
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