Solar Energy Trend

Solar Energy Regional Price Overview

Get the latest insights on price movement and trend analysis of Solar Energy in different regions across the world (Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa).

Solar Energy Trend for the First Half of 2024

In the first half of 2024, India's solar power generation grew at its slowest pace in six years, as the country increased its reliance on coal to meet rising power demand, with coal-powered electricity outpacing overall power generation growth. Solar module shortages, high costs of domestically produced modules, and the use of second-hand modules affected solar projects. To address this, the Indian government expanded its Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM), boosting solar module capacity. Meanwhile, China continued to dominate the global solar market but introduced stricter investment rules to tackle overcapacity.  Oversupply has driven prices down significantly in China.
 

Solar Energy Trend Chart

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Despite concerns over sluggish solar project development, investments in clean energy technologies are projected to reach $2 trillion by the end of 2024, with over $500 billion allocated to solar power. Solar energy has become increasingly competitive, with prices dropping nearly 50% by 2023, undercutting the costs of traditional fuels. However, China's dominance in solar manufacturing has led to overcapacity issues, squeezing profitability and destabilizing global markets.

International responses, including U.S. and EU tariffs, aim to mitigate supply chain risks and safeguard domestic industries, while China's policies continue to lower costs for solar and battery technologies, accelerating global green technology adoption. Balancing cost-effective solutions with market stability remains crucial for a sustainable energy transition. Globally, renewable energy expansion fell short of the target to triple capacity by 2030, as per IRENA's analysis.

Analyst Insight

According to Procurement Resource, not much change is anticipated in the Solar Energy market dynamics in the upcoming quarters; similar regional variations are projected.
 

Solar Energy Trend for the Second Half of 2023

In the second half of 2023, solar module prices in Europe experienced a steep and rapid decline due to a significant oversupply, with an estimated 40 GW to 100 GW of unsold modules accumulating in warehouses. The market, which had seen a price surge during the pandemic due to supply shortages, now faced a sharp downturn as demand plummeted amid rising interest rates, high inflation, and shifting energy policies. Excessive inventories of older PERC technology modules, coupled with dwindling interest from consumers, further exacerbated the price drop, triggering a downward spiral as competitors were forced to lower prices to unsustainable levels.

Manufacturers began scaling back production, but the market glut continued to pressure prices, leading to a challenging shakeout for industry participants. Chinese solar panel manufacturers also benefitted from a significant drop in production costs, driven by massive state investments totaling about $130 billion to boost capacity. This brought panel costs down to as low as 15 cents per watt, providing a substantial competitive edge over the U.S. and Europe, where costs are significantly higher. Despite this, a glut in production has emerged, leading to record-low module prices as manufacturers clear inventories during a seasonal demand lull.

Analyst Insight

According to Procurement Resource, Solar Energy prices are likely to fluctuate similarly in the coming months, given the current market fundamentals.
 

Solar Energy Trend for the First Half of 2023

The overall market for solar energy experienced a gradual fall in its prices due to the poor performance of the polysilicon industries. The most significant cause of this downfall of the solar energy market is the oversupply of polysilicon-based products in the Asia Pacific region. This excess influx not only raised the level of inventories but also increased the competitiveness of the market, due to which, in order to maintain their profit margins, the traders were forced to reduce their price quotations.

In addition to this, the consistent decline in the prices of wafers and cells further contributed to the downward journey of solar energy prices, especially in China. This availability of cheap alternatives has resulted in the stabilization in the rates of imports in India, which has given the Indian solar energy sector a boost. However, on the other hand, as compared to the past year, the level of imports has failed to match its ultimate potential as domestic production in India has lowered its dependency on Chinese industries, further hampering the price trend of solar energy.

Analyst Insight

According to Procurement Resource, the prices of Solar Energy are expected to follow an uncertain path as its demand globally seems to rise, but with the rise in domestic production in Asia and excess supply of polysilicon, the price trend of solar energy will struggle.
 

Solar Energy Trend for the Second Half of 2022

By achieving new world records for both the use of clean power and coal-fired electricity emissions in 2022, China affected the green energy market significantly. It has become the world's largest deployer of renewable energy from January through October 2022. According to statistics, China is on course to generate significantly more amount of green energy given to its increasing demand in the region than any other nation.

However, the region limited its export of advanced solar technology, hurting the market sentiments. The proposed ban would impede Chinese solar equipment makers' aspirations to expand abroad, particularly in Southeast Asia, where they aim to establish productive integrated wafer-to-solar panel production lines.

Following a similar trend, the US also imposed tariffs on the imports of solar devices. These new policies were introduced to boost domestic production but are expected to hamper the prices of solar energy-producing equipment in the long run.

Analyst Insight

Given the current market dynamics the prices of Solar energy are expected to oscillate in the coming months. The rise in awareness and pressure to adopt renewable sources of energy will drive the price trend of solar energy in a positive direction but the sanctions and restrictions being imposed by nations of export-import activities will try to keep the trend in a negative direction.
 

Solar Energy Trend For the First Half of 2022

With the soaring prices of raw materials, commodity inflation and custom duty the cost of solar power installation has gone up in India making it unviable for the manufacturers and consumers. In India, the prices of domestic solar panels have gone up by 50% averaging above 30 INR/watt.

The trade restrictions due to the Russia-Ukraine war coupled with the basic custom duty announced by the government on April 1 further worsened the situation. Imports of solar modules attracted a basic custom duty of 40% while that of solar cells attracted a 25% duty.

India has a solar cell manufacturing capacity of 3GW per year but is still dependent on China for the import of polysilicon, wafers, and ingots. The expensive logistics and the 40% import duty caused the prices of solar energy to increase in the Indian market. The solar tariffs are set to increase by more than 1/5 towards the end of the said year owing to the tariff calculation scheme introduced by the government.

The base case scenario, which includes duty-free import modules attracted a tariff of 2.43 INR/kWh. With module imports subjected to basic custom duty, the tariff would be 2.95 INR/kWh and if a developer can procure domestic modules, the tariff would be INR 2.26 INR/kWh. Hence, the price trend for solar energy tipped towards the higher side of the scale during the said period.

Procurement Resource provides latest prices of Solar Energy. Each price database is tied to a user-friendly graphing tool dating back to 2014, which provides a range of functionalities: configuration of price series over user defined time period; comparison of product movements across countries; customisation of price currencies and unit; extraction of price data as excel files to be used offline.