CISOLAR-2017: Solar Energy Is Among Main Drivers of Economy Development In Central And Eastern Europe
For the last 10 years, the average prices of solar modules have decreased in more than 30 times. In the same time, the efficiency of the equipment is growing fast. As a result, today, solar energy is among the most fast growing industries of the energy field. Decreasing of the equipment prices became the impetus for the development of small PV installations and small and medium business at all.
The new PV and solar thermal technologies and business opportunities for their implementation on the emerging markets of Europe became the main topics of CISOLAR- 2017, 6th International Conference and Exhibition Solar Energy Industry in Central and Eastern Europe, which was held on April 11th and 12th in Odessa (Maristella Marine Residence).
More than 300 delegates from 31 countries were participating in the conference part of this important and huge event covering the European emerging markets in the 1st day of CISOLAR-2017 which had the B2B format. More than 500 participants took part in the program of the 2nd day of CISOLAR-2017 which was created as the B2C platform.
“CISOLAR-2017 showed that arguments of skeptics about costliness of solar energy are motiveless. For the last two years, due to new technologies, the prices of solar modules have fallen down in two times. This trend is steady. The prices for other equipment are decreasing as well. These factors created a powerful basis for the development of PV projects on the household level. The wide-scale small PV installations is the main trend of the solar energy market on the emerging markets of Eastern and Central Europe for the nearest decade”, – Vitaliy Daviy, Chairman of the Organizing Committee of CISOLAR-2017 said.
According to Hamlet Tunyan, CEO of RECOM, the investors of solar energy projects are inclined to hedge the risks at each stage of the project implementation; especially as the financial markets offer a lot of new effective tools and instruments for this, nowadays.
“The successful combination of the continuous development of PV technologies and project financing opportunities is what lays the powerful basis for the solar energy industry growth in the region”, he noted.
At the same time, the low technological level of the energy infrastructure in the countries of the region is the main obstacle for project development on the emerging markets.
As Viktor Kurtev, CEO of the technological and science company “METROPOLIYA” noted, today the development of renewable energy depends on the development of infrastructure. This dependence creates some risks and limitations for vast solar installations grid connection.
Investment attractiveness of the solar energy projects will increase not only due falling prices of the equipment, but due to increasing of effectiveness of solar modules as well.
The Technical Director of Longi Solar Dr. Honbing Fang noted in his presentation at CISOLAR-2017, that in the period from 2007 to 2017 the share of solar modules in the total cost of PV stations has decreased from 42% to 14% and this trend is continues.
At the same time, the effectiveness of modules is increasing, in particular for mono-crystal modules.
“In 2016 Jinko Solar company achieved effectiveness of poly- and mono-crystal modules, respectively 19% and 21,2%,” Andre Viaro, Head of the Technical Service Department of Jinko Solar in Europe noted in his speach at the conference.
Most solar energy market experts are sure that the industry is at the doorstep of new technological changes, connected with revolution in energy storage and achievements in solar module effectiveness.
In particular, Sean Zhu, Sales Director, CEE & Nordic European Solar Inverter Business Development Department of HUAWEI, underlined in his speech at CISOLAR-2017 that “Intelligent systems is the future of economy. That is why our company is developing and offering the new intelligent solutions for energy transfer and conversion for different categories of consumers of the PV market”.
There are a lot of services for each level of projects which are developing on the solar energy market as well.
In the opinion of Morgane Fleurance, Technical Sales Engineer of JA SOLAR, besides quality and efficiency of solar modules, the technical estimation of all starting parameters is very important for successful PV project as well. “If your aim is to have the ideal PV plant, such parameters as the environmental characteristics including the shading area, grid connection, inverter and solar panel technologies have to be ideally fit to each other,” Ms. Fleurance noted.
Accoding to the key market players and international experts, today Ukraine is the main solar energy emerging market in Europe.
Sergiy Maslichenko, Associate Director Energy Efficiency and Climate Change, Ukraine, Poland, the Caucasus of EBRD noted that the loan portfolio of EBRD significantly increases in the sustainable energy field. “Today the share of this project exceeded 30%. In particular, during the period 2006-2016 EBRD financed almost 20 projects for total cost 300 millions euro. In the nearest time we see trends for the fast growing in the solar energy industry in Ukraine,” he told to the delegates of CISOLAR-2017.
According to one of the biggest Ukrainian PV plants developers, co-founder of Eco Optima company, Maxim Kozitsky, “there are big risks in Ukraine today, but at the same time there are huge possibilities for renewable energy project development here. We implemented projects in solar energy and wind energy fields and are going to increase investments in these fields”.
The start of the practical phase of the implementation of the Chernobyl Solar project became the significant event of this year. This project is been developing by the State Agency of Ukraine for Managing Exclusion Zone.
“This year, we created the basis for the development of solar energy projects in the Exclusion Zone. The constraction of the first station with capacity 2 MW was started. We are sure that we can turn the Exclusion Zone into the biggest solar energy cluster in Europe in the nearest two years,” Vitaliy Petruk, Chairman of the Agency declared at CISOLAR-2017.
Some regions of Ukraine are in the particular focus of interest for many investors.
As noted Elena Skrypnyk, Co-Founer of Helios Strategia, “today the investors and contractors have more possibilities for project implementation than couple of years ago. The development of technologies allows to use the potential of each region maximum, according to natural conditions and the level of the infrastructure development”.
The solar energy industry development appears in the emergence of new market segments and business model changes.
In the opinion of CEO Rentechno Eugene Landich, today the solar energy project development is heading out not only in the capacity increasing way, but in the market transformation too. Many new small companies offering new services from the solar modules cleaning to the repairing of PV plants are entering the market.
“The companies which can meet the needs of clients fast will have competitive advantages. This concerns design, supplies and installation of equipment and service. Companies have to build all businesses processes, with high level professionals involved. We call this “Cranc out EPS”, ” Alexey Badyka, CEO of Atmosfera says.
At the new stage of the European solar energy emerging market development, clients want to have the wider range of products offered by the manufacturers and distributors. The clients are becoming more demanding.
“We, in the company, created the range of products for different types of PV plants. In particular, we offer static and dynamic constructions for solar modules, so as the market needs flexible solutions,” Sergiy Novatsky, CTO of “Ukrainian Systems Solar” marked at CISOLAR-2017.
In general, following the results of the 6th Conference and Exhibition on Solar Energy Industry of Central and Eastern Europe, it should be noted, that the development of the market of the equipment for solar energy is going on the quality way. Most companies are doing or planning to do the modernisation of production capacity.
“The client always needs to solve the question of supplies of equipment “for yesterday”. Companies which are ready to respond the requests immediately will have competitive advantades. That’s why we constantly develope our manufacture and service,” Evgeniy Yaremenko, CEO of Solar Steelconstruction commented the latest market trends.
But the aspiration to cheapen the projects can finish with negative results, noted Olexandr Zhul, Head of Project Management Department of Unisolar.
“The main mistake of the most investors in the solar energy projects is economizing when speaking about service and equipment chosen for their PV plant. As a result, they use cheap services of incompetent contractors for the project, choose non-quality equipment and they finally loose money,” Mr. Zhul said.
According to the rates of the solar energy industry development the tasks about the share of solar energy in the total energy balance will be achieved faster, than previously expected.
“What is the future of energy? This is the achievement of the price parity between traditional and renewable sources. There are a lot of countries with such the parity today. According to the Ukrainian legislation, electricity from renewable sources has to have the same price like from traditional to 2030. But we will achieve this result in the nearest five years,” Sergiy Shakalov, CEO of KNESS noted during his speech at CISOLAR-2017.
The former President of the Solar energy association of Turkey (Gunder) Dr. Kemal Gani Bayraktar is categorical about fast expansion of solar energy technology.
“Is it possible to achieve 100% renewables in the energy balance? For me this question is rhetorical. This is the main need for the humanity. The increasing of demographic problem in combination with the growing energy deficit does not leave the room for illusions,” the expert marked at CISOLAR-2017.
CISOLAR-2017 is hosted by Innovative Business Centre. The General Media Partner is Bloomberg.
The Sponsors of CISOLAR-2017 become the following companies:
GigaWatt Sponsor — RECOM.
MegaWatt Sponsors — JA Solar, Rentechno, Atmosfera, Helios Strategia, KNESS, AEG 3W Power, Jinko Solar.
Kilowatt Sponsors — Photomate, Huawei, Solar SteelConstruction, Unisolar, US Solar, LONGI Solar, Eco-Optima.
Sponsor of Evening Receptions— Metropoliya.
More information about CISOLAR-2017 are available at 2017.cis-solar.com.
CISOLAR-2018 will be held in April 24-25 in Kiev, Ukraine.