Source: Energy & Management Powernews, May 12, 2022
The expansion of solar energy must proceed faster than before if Germany is to achieve its goals. The biggest challenge sees the BSW thereby not in the shortage of skilled workers.
"We are very confident that we will soon exceed several milestones," said Carsten Körnig, the chief executive of the German Solar Industry Association (BSW) at the opening of the Smarter E Europe trade fair in Munich. Still in 2022, according to the forecast, the solar industry worldwide could exceed the mark of 200,000 MW of total installed capacity. And also with the world-wide accumulated achievement a new record waits: which could reach shortly the Terrawatt mark.
Especially pleasingly from German view thereby is that Germany lies both with the installed PV total output (60,600 MW) and with the PV addition 2021 (6,000 MW) clearly under the Top 10 world-wide. In this context, the 2021 additions were "very positive" both in the home segment (+39%) and in the solar park segment (+72%). The industry's well-filled order books mean that a further increase can also be expected here for 2022, Körnig said. Only the commercial roofs are "a small problem zone", here the industry expects a stagnant development after an addition decline in 2021.
Correlating with the growth in the expansion of home PV systems, the boom in solar power storage systems is also continuing. There are now 413,000 in Germany, with an increase of 60% in the past year alone.
50 percent domestic value creation as a goal
In order for the development to continue to be positive in the future and to achieve the government's goal of tripling installed PV capacity to 215,000 MW by 2030, one thing above all is important: stable framework conditions and clear signals from politics, Körnig said. In particular, he said, there is still a need for action on the issue of land allocation.
While the shortage of skilled workers is also a major issue in the industry, he still sees great potential in local electrical companies. Here, many are just beginning to deal with the issue. It is obvious, he said, that tradesmen who already have training should continue their education in the field of photovoltaics and thus close part of the skills gap.
On the question of whether, in view of the current supply chain problems, the necessary components for rapid expansion would be available at all, Körnig referred once again to the massive expansion of recent years: "This shows that production capacities can be scaled quickly enough worldwide. At the moment, the components cannot be delivered fast enough, but that is not a structural problem."
In view of current developments, however, it is certainly necessary to consider whether it would be wiser to become more self-sufficient. However, absolute autarky is not desirable in this regard - also with regard to the export business, "I think it makes a lot of sense to build up about half of the capacities that we need throughout Europe here. And, above all, to close manufacturing chains," Körnig said. At the moment, however, such a 50 percent target is a long way off; some parts, such as wafers, are not manufactured in Europe at all, while other parts are only manufactured at minimal fractions of the actual demand. Basically, however, he said, many companies in the industry are very willing to (re)locate in Europe.
Author: Katia Meyer-Tien